Building America Case Study: Southern Energy Homes, First DOE Zero Energy Ready Manufactured Home, Russellville, Alabama

Program Document · Tue Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 2016

OSTI ID:1244204

Three side-by-side lab houses were built, instrumented and monitored in an effort to determine through field testing and analysis the relative contributions of select technologies toward reducing energy use in new manufactured homes.The lab houses in Russellville, Alabama compared the performance of three homes built to varying levels of thermal integrity and HVAC equipment: a baseline HUD-code home equipped with an electric furnace and a split system air conditioner; an ENERGY STAR manufactured home with an enhanced thermal envelope and traditional split system heat pump; and a house designed to qualify for Zero Energy Ready Home designation with a ductless mini-split heat pump with transfer fan distribution system in place of the traditional duct system for distribution. Experiments were conducted in the lab houses to evaluate impact on energy and comfort of interior door position, window blind position and transfer fan operation. The report describes results of tracer gas and co-heating tests and presents calculation of the heat pump coefficient of performance for both the traditional heat pump and the ductless mini-split. A series of calibrated energy models was developed based on measured data and run in three locations in the Southeast to compare annual energy usage of the three homes.

• Research Organization: NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States))
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Building Technologies Office (EE-5B)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1244204
• Report Number(s): NREL/FS-5500-65438; DOE/GO-102016-4832
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
ARIES
BEopt
Building America
ENERGY STAR
EnergyPlus
HUD Code
ZERH
Zero Energy Ready Home
co-heat test
coefficient of performance
ductless heat pump
energy efficiency
energy model
interior door position
lab houses
manufactured homes
mini-split heat pump
residential
residential buildings
tracer gas
transfer fan
window blinds