EP103 KB Home Creating More Water Efficient Homes with RESNET’s HERSH2O and EPA WaterSense with Jacob Atalla

Aug 29, 2022

“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 is 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 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/

 

Read about the KB Home WaterSense commitment to the Arizona, California, and Nevada housing markets.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220721005288/en/KB-Home-Becomes-First-National-Homebuilder-to-Commit-to-EPA%E2%80%99s-Highest-Water-efficiency-Standards-in-Drought-stricken-Arizona-California-and-Nevada

 

Hear more on the RESNET HERSH2O water efficiency rating system in three past episodes of RESTalk, EP50, EP79 and EP83.

 

https://restalk.libsyn.com/ep50-introducing-the-resnet-water-efficiency-rating-system-hersh2o-with-mark-johnson-icc-and-jacob-atalla-kb-home

 

https://restalk.libsyn.com/ep-79-california-dreamin-collaboration-between-resnet-and-california-rating-providers-on-hers-h2o-with-ryan-meres-and-russ-king

 

https://restalk.libsyn.com/ep83-why-raters-should-be-certified-for-hersh20-with-ryan-meres

 

 

RESTalk: To the RESNET community, we hear you and want to engage.

Learn more at www.RESNET.us

Or for more info on this topic contact RESNET at [e-mail]