On the final day of last year's International Code Council hearing proceedings October 10 in Atlantic City, NJ, homebuilder advocates banded together to hold the energy efficiency levels to the 2012 IECC levels, and mitigate any further progress in energy code efficiency gains. According to GreenBuilder magazine, mechanical equipment tradeoffs was the most-contested proposal during this portion of the hearings. If passed, builders could trade off building envelope measures for installing higher-than-minimum efficiency equipment. 

What's wrong with that? Builders are already installing higher-than-minimum efficiency equipment, because it's already readily available — and DOE standards are outdated. A tradeoff would have given homebuilders an efficiency credit that could then be used to reduce insulation or window efficiency below minimum code.

Energy efficiency advocates were determined to close what they viewed was a major loophole and defeat the proposal, which is now being referred to as RE166 (the proposal number). Among many issues, including the proposal creating a 2015 IECC with unequal compliance paths, Boulder County opposed the proposal because it will slow the county's climage goals. 

While the issue was hotly contested, code officials there voted 79-49 in favor of keeping the tradeoffs out of the code for the 2015 code cycle. Read more on pg 60-61...