Buy costlier house now, save energy later. Or vice versa. The Idaho fight over new homes
Changes coming to energy efficiency codes in Idaho could remove widely accepted minimum standards for construction and affect homeowners in the Treasure Valley.
A governor-appointed board within Idaho’s Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses could remove large portions of the energy efficiency requirements in the name of cutting regulation, as Gov. Brad Little has asked agencies across Idaho to do. In draft changes, the board has plans to cut significant regulations that do not specifically address the life and safety of Idahoans.
Builders say the existing requirements are not widely enforced, and that reducing them could save builders and home buyers money on construction costs. Some builders have also argued that consumers should have choices about what efficiency standards their homes have.
Opponents say the changes would cost homeowners more money on utility bills in the long run, while also increasing energy use that scientists say must be decreased to stop the worst effects of climate change.
The list of opponents to the changes is lengthy. The cities of Boise, Nampa and Ammon, as well as Idaho Power, the Idaho Association of Building Officials, Association of Idaho Cities, Idaho Consumer-Owned Utilities Association, Idaho Conservation League and other groups oppose them.
They variously cite concerns that the changes would make it more difficult for the state to reduce its peak energy demand on extreme hot or cold days, while jeopardizing some federally backed loans that require buildings to be up to certain standards, according to the Building Code Board’s agenda packet for a Tuesday, Nov. 15, meeting on the subject.
“Consumers expect that new homes and buildings are designed and inspected to the same code standards as other states,” Patrick Sullivan, the director of building safety and facilities development for Nampa, wrote in a letter to the board. “The proposed reduction in energy code standards in Idaho will result (in) buildings with lower performance than 49 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, all of which have adopted editions of the International Energy Conservation Code.”
The Idaho chapter of the American Institute of Architects supports the proposed removals.
The existing code was adopted this year by the Legislature, giving it the force of law. It was set in 2018 by the International Code Council, an international association of building safety professionals that develops the minimum construction standards every three years.
The code contains minimum requirements for all aspects of a building, including walls, ceilings, lighting, air conditioning, ventilation, doors and ducts.
An analysis by the council found that adopting the 2018 efficiency requirements could, on a national scale, “save residents of most states hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year in energy bills” over homes built to less-stringent requirements.
An analysis conducted by the Integrated Design Lab at the University of Idaho agreed. The analysis said less-efficient residential buildings could cost homeowners between $75 and $153 per year, while offices could see energy bill increases of $2,000 per year or more.
Damon Woods, a research assistant professor at the Integrated Design Lab in Boise, said the homeowners’ estimate was an initial analysis, and that costs could be even higher.
“It’s fairly wonky, but it has a really big impact on consumers,” he told the Statesman by phone.
In addition to adopting most of the 2018 code, the Legislature this year moved to transfer the Building Code Board’s ability to adopt any new code to lawmakers. That legislation allowed cities with more stringent energy requirements — which include Boise, Sun Valley, Ketchum and others — to be grandfathered in and to keep those codes. But those same cities could not further increase their minimum building requirements.
While other states are already adopting even more stringent requirements, like those in the International Code Council’s 2021 recommendations, cities in Idaho are prevented from doing so.
In recent years, stakeholders in Idaho have reviewed the building codes released every three years, which often include somewhat higher efficiency minimums for buildings. Tweaks are made, and then Idaho-specific recommendations are brought to the Building Code Board, which reviews them before adoption by the Legislature, Woods said. But wholesale cuts are “quite unusual.”
Woods said that certain materials — which could be needed to meet higher standards — can be hard to get in one part of the country, leading to changes until the market catches up. Or rural parts of the state don’t have enough technicians to conduct the tests, leading regulators to add other easier options for builders. But the drafted changes would be different, “striking huge sections of the code,” he said.
They would mean “more expensive utilities for everybody, it means a larger strain on the grid, and with more and more people moving to Idaho, it’s challenging for Idaho Power and Avista to ensure that everybody gets enough power without building more additional power plants,” Woods said.
Those additional power plants could mean more carbon emissions.
“By having more efficient buildings, we don’t have to build more power plants, and I think that’s better for everybody,” he said.
What is the governor’s initiative?
In 2020, Little issued an executive order asking all administrative agencies to begin a staggered process reviewing all of their regulations, in a process called “zero-based regulation.”
The process is similar to an idea in business known as “zero-based budgeting,” whereby each line item in an annual budget is required to be justified anew, rather than allowing prior expenses from previous years to continue into the present.
Other parts of the state’s construction code, like the mechanical and plumbing code, are also under review, though they are at a less advanced stage than the building codes.
At the Nov. 15 meeting, the Building Code Board delayed a decision to make the cuts after board members agreed that more research and analysis was needed to address the extensive negative response the proposed changes received.
Woods said that, based on the direction the meeting went, he expects that some of the more drastic cuts will not occur.
The current rules are under a temporary status. The board plans to schedule a meeting for February, when it will take up the issues again, according to a spokesperson for the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses, Bob McLaughlin.
This story was originally published November 27, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
