Improving the Energy Efficiency of Residential Buildings
Our residential research and deployment activities focus on improving the energy efficiency of U.S. homes.
The Building Technologies Program (BTP) works with residential building industry partners to improve the energy performance, quality, and comfort of existing and new homes. Learn about our work to improve residential buildings and access resources developed by BTP.
Building America Residential Building Research Program 
- Research Teams—Develop innovative efficiency strategies for the residential building market
- Systems Engineering—Whole-house approach to achieving higher quality and energy savings in homes
- Publications—Building America research reports, case studies, and the Best Practices series handbooks
- Builders Challenge—Voluntary industry partner initiative that helps to promote customer demand for high performance homes
Building Energy Codes
- Status of Codes—Code analysis and development activity
- Software Tools—REScheck compliance assessment for residential buildings
- Training—Building Energy Codes University
U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
- Competition—Overview of the Solar Decathlon, rules, contest, and application
- Teams—Listing of the 20 university-led teams selected for the 2011 competition
- Education—Resources for homeowners, building professionals, teachers, and kids
Additional Resources
- Home Energy Score—Information about a new efficiency label for existing homes
- BetterBuildings—Energy-efficiency initiative involving 35 states, local governments, and organizations
- Tax Incentives—Information about tax deductions for energy-efficient products and homes
- Window Volume Purchase—Listing of vendors offering high performance (R-5) and low-e storm windows
- Building Energy Software Tools Directory - Database of over 300 tools
- Appliance Standards—Test procedures and minimum efficiency standards