Barriers and Impediments to a Holistic Approach to Promoting Super-Energy-Efficient (SEE) Homes

Reducing energy consumption and environmental impacts of homes remains a critical task for researchers and practitioners. Although numerous energy efficient (EE) home strategies have been developed, their adoption across the entire industry has still been limited. Nationwide, only a small number of EE homes have been built under several well-known EE home programs. Therefore, the research question of, “what prevents EE homes from being widely accepted and built?” needs to be addressed and investigated thoroughly. This paper presents the findings—a comprehensive set of barriers and impediments to the wide spread adoption of EE homes—from an on-going effort made by an alliance of researchers, educators, builders, suppliers, appraisers, real estate agents, and other parties associated with the home construction industry. These findings are being used to develop and implement a holistic action plan to advance the cause of EE homes through research, education, and outreach. The provided insights will also help other researchers, educators, practitioners and government agencies re-evaluate the strategies used in promoting EE homes and improve the effectiveness of on-going and future programs.