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This excerpt was reproduced with permission from Green Building Guidelines.

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The "Whole Building" Design Process

In most cases, overall building design, systems, and components can be considered independently at the appropriate time during the design and construction process. However, green design is best executed through a whole house approach. This approach takes into account the interactive effects, recognizing that components of the home are linked together, so that all of them must be considered at the same time to find a cost-effective green building solution. The most important example of this effect links the following components:

  • Cooling equipment
  • Insulation and sealing of ductwork
  • Glazing
Here is how this linkage works:
  • High-performance glazing reduces the tonnage of cooling needed, but adds a noticeable cost.
  • Burying the ductwork under insulation—or better, getting it out of the attic and into the conditioned part of the home—also reduces the tonnage of cooling needed, and adds some cost.
  • Better duct sealing adds almost no cost and again reduces cooling tonnage.
  • If the above extra-cost measures are included, the cooling equipment can be substantially downsized, saving considerable cost.
  • By applying the cost saving from the smaller cooling equipment to the extra cost of the better glazing and ductwork, the whole package comes close to breaking even.
This “mutual back-scratching” among building components is termed the “whole building design” process. It contrasts with the usual procedure in which each part of the home is optimized as if it stood alone in the building, using what might be called the “parallel design” process. The parallel design process is highly favored by builders, because it does not require the time, energy, expense, and persuasion required to coordinate the work of several trades. However, some of the most important energy savings that can be made in a home require whole building design.

Knowing when to continue using the simpler parallel design process, and when to make the effort required to carry out the whole building design process, requires experience and imagination. To aid in acquiring this insight, this book contains a section called Building Integration at the end of every chapter. These sections suggest chapters to look for linkages between components.
 
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