Green Home Builder Standards
At Coval Homes, we offer a good balance of energy-efficient home standards with affordability for all of our base plans. The extent of how green you want your dream home to be is really up to you–beyond what comes as a standard. Based on our actual build data, Coval Home plans are approximately 40% – 50% more energy efficient (relative to a similar typical home) according to the HERS Index. Decisions you make like heating fuel type or configurations to the floor plan can positively or negatively impact your score regardless of our Green Home Builder Standards.
Home Energy Rating System (HERS)
The Home Energy Rating System (HERS) is a nationally recognized industry standard created by the non-profit RESNET for the purpose of identifying a home’s energy efficiencies. The home to be certified will be assessed by a RESNET-Certified Rater who will rate and give the home a HERS Index Score.
The HERS Index is a scale from 0-150, with (0) zero being a home that is most efficient with a net zero value and 150 being the least energy efficient. A score of 100 represents a typical home built to 2006 energy efficiency standards. This is used to evaluate comparatively the home’s energy efficiency performance to other equivalents to the 2006 IECC.
To calculate a home’s HERS Index Score, a certified RESNET HERS Rater does an energy rating on the home and compares the data against a ‘reference home’– a designed-model home of the same size and shape as the actual home, so the score is always relative to the size, shape and type of house.
- A home with a HERS Index Score of 80 is 20% more energy efficient than a standard new home
- A home with a HERS Index Score of 120 is 20% less energy efficient than a standard new home
