Help Wanted: Identifying conditions that can complicate retrofits

Phius Senior Scientist Graham Wright weighs in here with a guest post about some on-the-ground research he did regarding retrofits. Graham conducted a brief street-view survey of residential housing in Portland, Oregon (Glenfair, Glendoveer, Rockwood neighborhoods), and documented conditions that would complicate panelized retrofit solutions. He invites you to do the same in your neighborhood, and to submit what you find to advance research on panelized retrofit solutions.

It looks like I will be pivoting to concentrate my work on retrofit for a while. This is in connection with the Advanced Building Construction Initiative (ABC) of the U.S. Department of Energy. Under the program, RMI was funded to set up a collaborative and Phius is a member. The vision shared at the recent summit is to figure out how to decarbonize ALL BUILDINGS by 2050. A study of the building typologies is underway, led by NREL.

It is already clear that single-family detached houses are the vast majority of buildings by number, they probably also dominate the aggregated “thermal loads” of heating, cooling, and hot water that comprise most of the energy/emissions savings opportunity.

Continue reading here.