“Positive attitude plus effort equals performance.” Tommy Tuberville As we hear more about droughts, what is the impact on residential new construction? Why did KB Home feel it was important to commit to the WaterSense label for all future home builds in Arizona, California, and Nevada? How is KB Home using RESNET’s HERSH2O water efficiency rating system to address water consumption without sacrificing performance for homeowners? Jacob Atalla, VP of Innovation and Sustainability for KB Home joins us to discuss the important work being done to create more water-efficient homes using RESNET’s HERSH2O® water efficiency rating system. We discuss the importance of water efficiency, the trends over time, and the stakeholders that value water efficiency. Jacob also shares the background on RESNET’s HERSH2O® water efficiency rating system, how it was created and how it is an easy “add” to the work performed by a HERS® Rater. Jacob helps us understand the long history of work KB Home has done and some of the awards they have received as a positive force in this area. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), WaterSense labeled homes use at least 30% less water than a typical home and can save a household 50,000 gallons of water annually, on average. To date, KB Home has built over 18,000 WaterSense labeled and Water Smart homes — more than any other homebuilder — and installed over 900,000 WaterSense labeled fixtures. The company estimates that these homes, together with the WaterSense labeled fixtures within them, conserve approximately 1.6 billion gallons of water annually. We also touch on the water/energy nexus discovering that Las Vegas homes built by KB Home (as part of an EPA study) saw savings of an extra 1,100 kWh annually (beyond the savings estimated by the RESNET HERS® rating alone) due to the overall water conservation, a portion of which is hot water conservation. Learn more about RESNET’s HERSH2O® water efficiency rating system here: https://www.resnet.us/about/hersh2o/ Click here to read about the KB Home WaterSense commitment to the Arizona, California, and Nevada housing markets. Hear more on the RESNET HERSH2O® water efficiency rating system in three past episodes of RESTalk: EP50 Introducing the RESNET Water Efficiency Rating System HERSH2O® with Mark Johnson (ICC) and Jacob Atalla (KB Home) EP79 California Dreamin’ Collaboration Between RESNET and California Rating Providers on HERSH2O® with Ryan Meres and Russ King EP83 Why Raters Should be Certified for HERSH2O® with Ryan Meres Listen to the full episode here.
