How BIM Can Help the Push to Net Zero

A Virginia builder and developer is using BIM technology to build high-performance homes, according to The Energy & Environmental Building Alliance.

While Building Information Modeling (BIM) is standard operating procedure on large commercial projects, relatively few residential builders have gotten on board. However, the technology has great potential for innovating homebuilding in general and green, high-performance building, in particular. The few homebuilders who are using it call it a game changer.

One of these is Jay Epstein, a Virginia builder/developer who started down the high-performance path more than 30 years ago. He was an early participant in the Building America program, and his company won three recent Housing Innovation Awards from the Department of Energy—in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Now he has teamed up with Skokie, Ill.-based DIGIBILT to use its BIM system for designing and managing construction of the state's first net zero ready community, Walnut Farm, which will consist of 75 single-family homes in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The bottom line is that while most industries have embraced digital technology and run with it, a lot of builders are still moving at a crawl. Epstein says that's not acceptable for a high-performance builder. Zero Energy Ready homes and communities are the future, and anyone who wants to create them needs to have a business of the future. "The building industry is the second least digitized in the world," he points out. "It's time we grew up and started building smart."

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