A couple of years ago, Michigan’s Cobblestone Homes partnered with Dow Chemical Company to collaborate on the InVision Zero house, a home that is entirely sustainable for its energy use while being affordable and attainable for many Americans.
The InVision Zero home showcased several Dow products including POWERHOUSE solar shingles, WaterFurnace geothermal heating and cooling system, walls that are filled with 5” of Dow closed-cell spray foam, one inch each of Dow Structural Insulating Sheathing (SIS) and Dow Tongue-and-Groove Styrofoam to ensure a complete thermal break, and triple-paned Paradigm windows.
The most recent collaboration between Dow and Cobblestone is the TEETH (Twelve Energy Efficient Test Homes) Project, a five-year energy efficiency study on twelve homes that have been recently built in a subdivision in Midland, Michigan.
The TEETH houses have been built with various combinations of products that have been chosen by Dow Building Solutions in consultation with energy technology experts at Cobblestone Homes to determine what strategies are most effective in new home construction. TEETH is the first project of its kind in America.
Currently available for rent from RiverTowne Properties, the homes feature instrumentation to collect quantitative and qualitative data regarding performance and comfort such as energy consumption, moisture and humidity levels, temperature, and heat flow.
The twelve test homes are similar in size, floor plan, grade, and orientation to the sun to most effectively compare data and evaluate energy efficiency solutions. Sub-metering can differentiate between which systems are drawing on energy sources at any given time.
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