Adopted 2005 Enhancements of the National Home Energy Rating Standards

The key to the success of the rating industry is to setting and implementing the standards for quality of rating services. Having technically sound and up-to-date standards enhances the credibility of the entire rating industry and provides greater confidence in the rating services.

In 2004 RESNET adopted a set of comprehensive enhancements to its rating standards. Since the enhancements were adopted a number of changes have taken place that effect building performance. These changes includes the new proposed 2006 ENERGY STAR for Homes guidelines and passage by Congress of tax credits for residential energy efficiency. In addition it was discovered that there was a need to tweak some of the provisions of the enhancements. For this reason a set of amendments are being proposed to the national home energy rating standards.

There are two main categories of amendments that were adopted: enhancements to the technical guidelines and a modification to the rating quality assurance provisions. The most significant change is changing the current rating score to a "HERS® Index" where a score of "0" equates to a net zero energy home and a score of "100" equates to the HERS reference home.

2005 Adopted Amendments