Brookhaven Improves Energy Conservation for Home Construction

The Town of Brookhaven moved forward to make improvements with energy conservation for home construction at last week’s town board meeting.

The town decoupled Energy Star Homes requirements from the codes and replaces them with a requirement to achieve Home Energy Rating System (HERS) index, according to a statement.

“I commend the hard work of the Sustainability Institute at Molloy College for their extensive research. This initiative will result in significant energy conservation, which will further reduce the carbon footprint of households,” said Councilwoman Connie Kepert in a statement. “It also benefits the economy by reducing the cost of energy bills.  Finally, both Energy Star, and Green Homes Legislation have resulted in the creation of a whole new industry of green jobs on Long Island.”

Neal Lewis, Executive Director of the Sustainability Institute at Molly College said Brookhaven's actions in adopting this amendment to the local building code that was introduced by Kepert, builds upon the story that began in 2006 with adoption of the Energy Star Homes Law.

“That law has helped protect the environment by eliminating wasted energy, has saved homeowners money from reduced energy bills, it has reduced our reliance on foreign sources of oil, has created local green jobs,” he said.

Lewis also said the Sustainability Institute at Molloy College estimates that it has also kept more than $1.25 million in the Long Island economy.

“These new changes to this historic law will provide leadership and keep Long Island on the forefront of building performance science,” Lewis added. “We hope all Long Island towns will adopt these changes to their residential building codes."