Building Performance Round Table

In this live recording from the AHR Expo, Kaleb Saleeby, Nate Adams, Michael Housh, and Steve Rogers discuss building performance.

The building science world is an exciting place; we’re all excited about improvements to reheat dehumidification, which is when we use waste heat to take care of humidity without cooling. As equipment becomes more efficient, we also look forward to tackling new challenges that make us think more broadly. New people are also stepping up, using new tools, accessing more knowledge, and doing better work.

Building performance is becoming more important in HVAC via HVAC 2.0, which focuses on design efficiency. However, the biggest challenge right now is making HVAC 2.0 sustainable and profitable. We must simplify and scale building performance; when we make it accessible, we can work it into the HVAC industry and do more thorough work.

One of the challenges to widespread adoption is the lack of experience with building performance. The average technician simply doesn’t have the needed exposure to building science concepts and practices. Perhaps the best way to bring people into the building science side of the business is to work on the techs’ own homes. We need to bring the personal part of building performance to the technicians and their families if we want to see widespread adoption of HVAC 2.0.

We also need to make building performance solutions accessible to the consumers. Although the solutions may be too expensive for many customers right now, the goal is to start holistic comfort conversations.

Kaleb, Nate, Michael, Steve, and Bryan also discuss:

• Tapping into the engineering mindset
• Economic sustainability
• Psychrometric charts vs. app-based learning
• Math vs. software
• Working with techs and the CSRs
• The Gulf of Disappointment
• Contractor relationships
• Economic and environmental impacts
• Fossil fuels
• Upgrading the electrical grid
• Propane

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