This report presents the results of an impact evaluation of a building energy code training campaign on residential code compliance rates in the state of Nebraska. The authors conducted field inspections on a sample of 42 newly-constructed homes in Nebraska—normalizing, modeling, and comparing the results to a pre-training compliance evaluation.
On average the pre-training study buildings used 9.1 percent more than a home that complied with the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The post-training study homes used 2.2 percent more than a minimally compliant home resulting in a decrease in annual energy use of 6.9 percent.
While the change in compliance rates cannot be exclusively attributed to the code training program, these results suggest that building energy code trainings can be an effective tool in improving the efficiency gains from building energy codes.
