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Cold and Very Cold Climate Case Studies

Map of the Cold & Very Cold Zones of the United States. The far tips of North Dakota, Maine, and southern Alaska are shown as Very Cold. The northern half of the United States is labeled Cold.

Following are case studies from the Cold and Very Cold Climate Zone. The case studies feature residential building projects in this region. Publications featuring Building America homes in other U.S. climate zones are available too. These publications are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs. Download Adobe Reader.

New Construction

Project Name: CDC Utah (PDF 476 KB)
Builder: Community Development Corporation of Utah
Location: Magna, Utah

Project Name: Colrain House (PDF 479 KB)
Builder: Rural Development Inc.
Location: Turner Falls, Massachusetts
Solar Use: The prototype house incorporates solar photovoltaics and solar hot water.

Project Name: Summerset at Frick Park (PDF 480 KB)
Builder: Kacin Homes
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Retrofit Projects

Project Name: Depression-Era Demonstration Retrofit (PDF 307 KB)
Builder: Asdal Builders, LLC
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Project Profile: The retrofit of this 1930s-era bungalow resulted in a HERS score of 65 and 80% reduction in overall energy use.

Project Name: Newburgh Historic Row House Retrofit (PDF 280 KB)
Builder: Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh, Inc.
Location: Newburgh, New York
Project Profile: Using cold-climate, high-performance retrofit strategies, this project created affordable, energy-efficient homes for low-income families.

Project Name: System Retrofit Package Design (PDF 180 KB)
Builder: Yakama Nation Housing Authority
Location: Wapato, Washington
Project Profile: This project used a "system retrofit package" to improve efficiency of 25 single-family homes on the Yakama Indian Reservation, cutting energy use in half and creating a model for replication across 4,300 homes built on U.S. reservations.

 

See Best Practices Handbook - Volume 3 (PDF 5.6 MB). This document provides specifics on implementing Building America solutions in Cold and Very Cold Climates.