For a history and political science major, it’s been a long and winding road to finding my passion as a building science nerd and applied building scientist, and to seeing codes as a vehicle for bringing sustainable construction to mainstream construction. I thought I was going to be a teacher, but my post-college teaching internship did not launch that career. It did, however, get me to Japan, where I taught English, traveled the world, and began to realize that my environmental ethics would lead me to my future career. It was 1990, and I thought this amorphous dream job would require more schooling, so I went to Alaska and joined the salmon fishing fleet in Bristol Bay to raise funds for the endeavor. Five seasons later, realizing I missed the heyday of fish prices and that more schooling was not the answer, I went back to construction, which I had worked in high school and college. I was hired by a regional production builder in my home state of Colorado.

My role in the company was to research and bring new “green building materials” into the production building arena through what we called the environmental research house. I-joists, cellulose insulation, low-VOC paint, alternative HVAC, blower-door and duct testing, along with publications like Energy Design Update and Environmental Building News (which I read cover to cover), were all relatively new to mainstream building at the time. The work at the environmental research house eventually came to an end, but I was introduced to performance-based construction and gained a ton of experience working closely with the Building America Program, Building Science Corporation, and our state energy program. My interest was sparked, and I realized that a career as a building scientist would be a better fit than becoming a builder. As luck had it, the first energy-rater class was offered in Colorado around this time, and I jumped at the chance to continue learning more about how homes perform.

When I started in 1994, the RESNET energy-rating world was operated through state offices. In Colorado the program was called E-Star Colorado and was run through the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. At that time, ratings were focused primarily on existing homes; eventually, though, ratings morphed into primarily being used in new construction, and energy audits took over the work in existing homes. Before I landed my first production-builder client, and in order to ensure the state’s fledgling energy-rating program succeeded, I traveled anywhere necessary to perform an energy rating or audit.

I am fortunate to have worked in both the existing home and new home worlds as I think it has given me a broader perspective. As my career progressed, I continued to follow Joe Lstiburek around the country, attending conferences and soaking in all I could. I grew my business to a point where I concluded that I could continue to pay the state to process ratings, or I could become my own rating provider and hire to grow a business. I chose to become my own provider at roughly the same time other rating companies did, which caused the demise of E-Star Colorado and the state-run program.

I have always enjoyed working in the business more than working on the business, which led to a merger and the creation of one of the largest energy-rating companies in Colorado. I never completely left the field, because fieldwork is where the aha moments happen, where you see applied building science come to life. The rating world continued to morph, and we began working with national production builders who were the first adopters of the Energy Star program and code performance compliance building. Through this work I learned not only to read building program and code requirements but also to understand and interpret the requirements.

In presentations I give now, I have adopted a saying from the Dalai Lama: “You need to know the rules so you can break them properly.” This applies in many ways to the building industry; understand the building science so you can build the crazy stuff we want to build and still have it work. Thirty years into my career, I’ve learned when to ask more questions and when I need help from others, but I also have the confidence to call myself an applied building scientist. At least I am passionate and opinionated enough on the subject to have a heated discussion and understand when I need to know more. And I’ve found a way to make a living by doing this.

So why the energy codes? The Stapleton airport in the heart of Denver closed in 1995 and was redeveloped with almost 9,000 Energy Star homes. I was involved with the vast majority of the Energy Star certification work and quickly learned that codes and energy-efficiency programs are quite similar. Over time, the similarities and overlaps have gotten to the point where the same requirements are in both because ultimately they are trying to achieve the same thing: safe, comfortable, efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective high-performance homes. The only difference in obtaining the certificate of occupancy, meeting the requirements of the 2021 IECC program, and certifying a home for a program like Energy Star is enforcement. Programmatic certification (Energy Star, Zero Energy Ready, Phius, etc.) is enforced mostly by individuals, often energy raters, who believe wholeheartedly in the process and the outcome. IECC certification (certificate of occupancy) is by and large enforced by municipalities and individuals that still believe energy is not a health and safety issue and is outside the “true” scope of their work. This point of view is summed up by an expression we hear far too often: “The code is reflective of the minimum shittiest house that one is legally able to build.” The goal of this GBA column will be to explain why this statement is wrong and to demonstrate the science, performance, health, safety, durability, and resiliency that are wrapped into the IECC in the same way they are wrapped into the whole family of international building codes.

I look forward to taking this journey of discovery with you.

This is the first blog in a new monthly series on Green Building Advisor titled Understanding the Energy Code. Tomorrow we will discuss modern energy code development.

Robby Schwarz is the founder and principal thinker at BUILDTank, Inc., a pragmatic building think tank whose mission is to use what we learn by applying building science in the field to affect meaningful change in the construction industry, to chase issues that hold the industry back, and to generate ideas and innovations that move sustainable building into mainstream building. Photos courtesy of the author.