Challenge: Arizona Public Service Company (APS) operates in a hot desert climate where the fast growing Phoenix metro area is its main area of customer concentration. In the desert climate, quality air conditioning is clearly an essential service for commerce, industry, and day-to-day life. Closely tied to the effectiveness of an air conditioning system and maintaining comfortable indoor conditions is the thermal integrity of the building in which the system is installed. Given the importance of air conditioning to life in the desert climate and the satisfaction of its customers, APS elected to launch a multi-year residential sector market transformation program intended to transform the new home construction and HVAC installation, service and maintenance markets for significantly improved energy efficiency, comfort, safety, and durability.
Project Highlights:
- Responsible for design and turn-key implementation of a residential new home and existing HVAC system market transformation program
- Involved extensive builder and contractor training, and customer marketing, education and outreach
- Single-handedly transformed the market for high-efficiency new home construction and HVAC system design, installation and maintenance
Approach: Members of the Tierra team were responsible for the design and turn-key implementation of APS’ residential market transformation program. The program provided extensive and in-depth builder and contractor building science training; high performance home education and sales training for the real estate industry; builder and contractor pre-qualification, co-branding and referral services; and extensive marketing, education and outreach to the home buyer and home owner community on the benefits of high efficiency homes and HVAC systems. A key feature of the program was a substantial effort to build collaborative and cooperative working relationships with and across multiple HVAC and building industry contractors, interest groups, and real estate and construction trade organizations. Another important feature of the program was the in-field demonstration, testing and monitoring of the effectiveness of high-performance measures and construction techniques from comfort, energy cost, and home value perspectives. The demonstration effort was particularly important for the HVAC contractor and new home builder community who are strongly oriented toward practical solutions that must be shown to work in as-built conditions.
Outcome: This innovative and market moving program was single-handedly responsible for major improvements in new home framing and insulation practices, HVAC system sizing and installation practices, duct leakage sealing, maintenance practices, and a variety of other improvements that dramatically improved the energy and comfort performance of new and existing homes in the Phoenix metro area. The Tierra team was responsible for all phases of program design, delivery, outreach, communications, and market and trade partner engagement.
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