EEBA's High Performance Home Blog

High-performance homebuilding is about more than energy efficiency. It is about creating homes that support human health, reduce environmental impact, and contribute to more resilient communities. During EEBA’s October 28, 2026, webinar, “Scaling Regenerative Design: Transforming Residential Practice with Living Future Programs,” Jaime Van Mourik, Vice President of Market Transformation at Living Future, explored how residential building professionals can put regenerative design into practice. Living Future offers frameworks, certifications, and educational resources that help teams evaluate building performance, material health, carbon emissions, and equity. These tools can help builders move beyond reducing negative impacts toward creating more positive outcomes. From Sustainable to Regenerative Design Traditional sustainability often focuses on minimizing harm. Regenerative design takes a broader view, considering how buildings can contribute to healthier environments,... read more

For more than 21 years, Nancy Bakeman has been at the heart of EEBA’s mission. As Executive Vice President, she helped cultivate a community of residential building professionals united by a shared commitment to advancing building science, elevating industry knowledge, and transforming how homes are built for the betterment of people and our environment. At the 2026 Excellence Awards, that legacy was celebrated with the EEBA Legend Award. 

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Every fall, DOE releases updated program documents for the Efficient New Homes Program (previously ZERH). Updates reflect clarifications resulting from dialogue with the program’s builders and raters. 

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The 2026 EEBA Building Excellence Awards brought together the high-performance home building industry to recognize the leading builders, suppliers, and professionals pushing the industry forward. Presented during the EEBA High Performance Home Builder Summit this year in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the awards celebrated innovation and leadership in healthier homes, resiliency, electrification, decarbonization, and high-performance housing. This year’s awards were evaluated by a diverse group of industry professionals, including sustainability directors, home energy raters, high-performance field specialists, program directors, market transformation leaders, manufacturers, and architects. Each brings specialized expertise and a shared commitment to advancing high-performance housing within their respective organizations and across the industry. Their collective knowledge helped recognize projects and partners demonstrating meaningful progress in building better-performing... read more

The EEBA Board has approved two motions that reflect the best of EEBA: growing its leadership bench while honoring the people who built it. Megan Cordes Joins the Executive Committee Megan Cordes, Director of Sustainability and Building Science at Beazer Homes, has been elected to EEBA's Executive Committee. Megan joined the EEBA Board in 2026, and this move puts her in a more active leadership role, shaping the nonprofit's direction. Megan brings a track record that speaks for itself. Under her leadership, Beazer became the first national homebuilder to deliver 100% of its new homes to match or exceed the DOE's Efficient New Homes (formally Zero Energy Ready Home) standard, a milestone the company reached last year, while also picking up four RESNET awards. She'll bring that same perspective to the stage in September as part of the High Performance Home Builder Summit opening keynote, "Opening Remarks and DOE Efficient New Homes Builder Panel," joining builders... read more

Written by: Andrew Wickham, the Senior Director of Solar Products at CertainTeed, where he leads the development of innovative solar roofing and energy solutions for residential and commercial applications. Project: New office building, Sarmiento’s Roofing, Oregon | Building Type: New-construction commercial office (~11,000 sq. ft.) | Solar / Roofing Contractor: Sarmiento’s Roofing, LLC |Solution Provider: CertainTeed The Project In 2024, Sarmiento’s Roofing, LLC completed a brand-new, 11,000-square-foot, wood-frame office, showroom and shop in Salem, Oregon. For owner Santiago Sarmiento, the roof was more than a building component, it was a proving ground. As a roofing and solar contractor, he wanted his own facility to showcase where the industry is heading: integrated solar roofing that looks like a traditional roof, protects like a premium roofing system, and delivers real energy savings. A major motivator came from Oregon’s rapidly changing energy landscape.... read more

Today’s residential homebuilders are operating in a remarkably complex market. Elevated mortgage rates, stubborn construction costs, and a pressing home affordability crisis have slowed sales velocity and forced builders to rethink traditional incentives. In recent years, builders have relied on design center credits or mortgage rate buy-downs to attract buyers. However, these are short term fixes that directly dilute a builder’s margins. Forward-thinking builders can now shift their strategy from these buyer concessions to a permanent reduction in a home’s monthly operating costs. In the Greater Houston area, energy has become one of a household’s largest operational expenses outside of the mortgage payment itself. By rethinking how communities are powered, builders can fundamentally lower this ongoing cost for homeowners while securing a distinct competitive advantage. Through a strategic partnership in Texas with Reliant Energy, Sunrun is deploying a modern grid... read more

At the 2025 EEBA Summit, a panel of builders and building science professionals, Andrew Guido, Tim O'Brien, Bill Rectanus, Gord Cooke, Bill Shadid, came together for a practical, candid discussion on what it really takes to deliver healthier, lower-carbon, and more resilient homes in today’s market. The tone wasn’t theoretical—it was grounded in field experience, trade-offs, and lessons learned from actual projects. The session was structured as a “lessons learned” conversation, moving through three major themes: healthy housing, carbon reduction, and resilience, followed by an open discussion on what’s working—and what isn’t—in real-world implementation. Healthy Homes: Building Science That Starts With Air The discussion opened with healthier homes, a topic that has been part of high-performance building conversations for years but continues to evolve in practice. Building science expert Gord Cooke emphasized that “health” in housing is broader than most people assume. It ... read more

Recently, we had the opportunity to take an exclusive tour of the IBHS Research Center in Richburg, South Carolina—a world-class facility dedicated to advancing building science and improving the resilience of homes and communities. The IBHS Research Center is operated by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, an independent, nonprofit research organization supported by the property insurance industry. Its mission is to translate science into action by identifying how buildings perform under real-world natural hazards and using that knowledge to reduce future losses and improve construction practices. What makes this facility truly unique is its ability to recreate severe weather conditions at full scale. On its 90-acre campus, researchers can simulate high winds, wind-driven rain, hail, wildfire ember exposure, and other extreme events to study how residential and commercial structures respond. This includes the massive 6-story test chamber equipped with a wall ... read more