ASU Research E-Magazine: Built to Last

Yellow efficiency-rating stickers adorn new refrigerators, air conditioners, and other household appliances. The stickers tell consumers the estimated yearly operating cost. Fuel economy ratings on new vehicles share miles-per-gallon. Will houses be the next in line for their own efficiency labels?

Perhaps. If proposals submitted by groups of ASU student research teams are adopted, local consumers might be able to comparison shop for homes the same way they shop for dishwashers.

Students study “sustainable housing” as part of a transdisciplinary course offered at ASU. Teams of students with majors in construction, geography, architecture, business, engineering, interior design, and liberal studies learn to work together. They evaluate existing technologies that will result in cost-effective homes with better lifecycle costs and less impact on the environment.

The student research is packaged into juried final team projects. Their findings are challenging the way key Arizona groups—builders, homebuyers, engineers, utility providers, city planners—think about home construction.

“Sustainable housing is about your house having less impact on the environment as far as the materials you use in construction. It is about a house being healthier to the occupant and being more cost-effective,” says architecture professor Harvey Bryan, one of four scholars who team-teach the course.

“There is so much residential development in the Phoenix metro area,” adds Howard Bashford, an associate professor with ASU’s Del E. Webb School of Construction who spearheads the transdiciplinary course. “What we do now gets locked into place for 40 or 50 years. What we build now should be more sustainable with a focus on energy efficiency.”

Statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy support Bashford’s concerns. Those numbers indicate that all buildings in the United States—during their construction, use, and demolition—account for nearly 40 percent of all domestic energy use. They also account for 70 percent of all electricity consumption.

There is little to no design focus on alternative energy sources. As a result, these buildings contribute significantly to the production of greenhouse gases. Even so, the team of instructors, including geography professor Mike Pasqualetti and business management lecturer Eddie Davila, say consumer and builder behaviors haven’t changed much.

The lowest possible initial home price is what consumers zero-in on. They don’t really worry about the quality of materials used—even if it creates energy inefficiency, poor indoor air quality, or other problems likely to plague the homeowner in later years.

“A big problem with sustainable houses is that builders won’t build them,” says Davila. “They say no one is asking for the energy-efficient windows, roofing, insulation, and building techniques.”

The ASU teaching team contends that consumers would ask for such products if they were aware of their availability and understood their benefits.

It is this thinking that ASU student researchers hope to influence. “The class looks at how we can change people’s behaviors,” Davila says.

One student group aimed to change the thinking of both the building and the buying community. Their idea is called FRESH (Family Residential Energy Saving Home).

“Our research focused on selecting existing technologies and developing a marketing package that would convince home sellers and construction companies to include these products in their homes,” explains Gabriel Judkins, a geography graduate student. His team won one of the $1,000 cash awards presented by course sponsor Salt River Project (SRP).

Judkins says the products must be economical for the consumer and easy-to-install for the homebuilder.

“Our research revealed that the number one energy consumer for Phoenix—the air conditioning unit—does the most damage with bills,” he says. His team of six studied hundreds of products, pored through pages of ratings materials, and interviewed product manufacturers, home builders, and engineers.

Their final package included a water-cooled air conditioning unit (twice as efficient as a traditional electric unit), a quality air filter, and a solar-operated exhaust fan in the garage. The final piece was an air intake system to positively pressurize the home—keeping outdoor air pollution outside.

“Indoor air quality in American homes is six to 10 times more polluted than outdoor air,” Judkins says. The easy-to-install pressurized system and exhaust fan are designed to keep polluted garage air from entering the home. The idea offers a marketing advantage to builders and a health advantage to buyers.

“This class is all about bringing together people who normally don’t work together. We combine students from business, architecture, engineering, and geography,” says Pasqualetti.

“Business people and techies don’t always know how to talk to one another,” Davila explains. “A business person is motivated by revenue and profits. An engineering student is focused on making it bigger, better, and faster. Through this course, both sides come to realize that you need to consider both simultaneously.”

FRESH team members learned that lesson early on as non-business players were introduced to business research. They reviewed average home costs, mortgage concepts, and average down payments. They found that buyers, in the first year alone, would realize a $4,000 energy savings with only a $2,600 investment in energy-efficient products.

“So many thoughts came out of this class over a three-year period. It gave us an opportunity to look back and be reflective on what the next generation is thinking,” says Herjinder Hawkins, manager for renewable energy and technologies at SRP and a judge for the final presentations.

Two student projects—one, an in-depth analysis of solar water heating, and another, a review of SRP’s online energy modeling tools for consumers—caused SRP to review its current offerings in those areas.

“The solar water heating research spurred conversations at SRP about offering state incentives to consumers who purchase them,” says Hawkins.

SRP also considered upgrade recommendations to its online tool that allows customers to swap materials in their homes—windows, appliances, building materials—and see resulting energy savings.

“Some students completed market surveys at trade shows and conducted consumer focus groups. Others focused on calculating lifecycle costs—how much a piece of equipment is going to cost to operate,” says Bryan. He introduced students to analysis software that allows the user to manipulate a building’s exterior climate and materials to study impact on energy efficiency.

“When students complete this class, they have developed the skills to put together a business plan that takes technology from the idea to the marketplace,” Bryan adds.—Melissa Crytzer Fry