Duane Jonlin is Seattle’s Energy Code Advisor, and his job is to push change on a building industry famously resistant to anything that even smells like it. Jonlin’s a winner in almost all these building-code battles thanks to a not-so-secret weapon: he works for politicians who believe in energy efficiency. “Across the country the energy code is a flashpoint that draws intense antagonism,” Jonlin said. “But if you have top-down support, you can use it to drive innovation.”

It’s important to consider windows, doors, and skylights because good choices in new structures make efficient energy use possible, Jonlin said. Efficiency is important, he said, because it is increasingly the cheapest and least-risky way to meet future growth in demand for power in his part of the country – Jonlin cited a forecasting exercise from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a regional energy-planning body for Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington, which considered numerous future scenarios, and found that in 90 percent of them, there would be no need to build new power plants for a decade if efficiency measures were used instead. The report found in more than 50 percent of situations an efficiency drive would mean no new power plants required to 2040. 

Jonlin’s political bosses are convinced too. One example of Seattle’s commitment to efficiency, Jonlin says, is that the city requires windows and glass for storefronts and the exteriors of high-rise buildings to be rated by the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) and enforces this requirement. 

At the state level, Washington passed a law in 2009 mandating that by the year 2030 new buildings offer an energy savings of 70 percent compared with 2006 levels. The law mandates that standards improve gradually with every update to Seattle’s and Washington’s building codes, to ensure steady progress toward the 2030 deadline. 

As more states, cities, and communities enact emissions’ reduction targets, the sense of possibility Jonlin enjoys will go from notable to normal, and his experience will become more relevant for code officials across the country. Washington’s state legislature enacted its efficiency law in response to the American Institute of Architects’ Architecture 2030 challenge, which according to the Architecture 2030 website, only California and Washington have adopted as mandatory for all buildings. Some states have made it voluntary, but Jonlin said that’s not enough. 

“People say you just need the right way to encourage the construction industry, but that’s a happy fantasy,” Jonlin said. “The market can adjust and innovate, but it only happens on that magical level when it’s absolutely required.”

When he meets resistance, Jonlin said he reminds product manufacturers and builders that he’s merely enforcing a law. And, often enough, he’s rewarded with innovation. In the last few code updates, he said, he’s pushed to make windows more efficient by boosting the standard for how much heat they must block from escaping a building’s interior. He thought he could trigger a move from double-pane windows to triple-pane ones, which insulate better but are more expensive to install because they are thicker. But it hasn’t happened. “The industry just keeps innovating better double-paned glass.”  

Examples of that new technology include ``thin triples,’’ which were developed together with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They feature a thin layer of glass similar to the material used for computer screens between the two panes. That avoids the thickness problem. In large spaces such as airports and skyscraper lobbies, using thin triples eliminates the need for heating along the perimeter.

The knowledge that innovation replaces resistance is something Jonlin said he learned from his old boss and mentor, John Hogan, who 20 years ago mandated all new windows have a low-emissions coating on them that blocks heat from entering homes without also blocking natural light. 

“Builders reacted like the world was going to end,” Jonlin recalled. “But instead they adjusted, and we got better buildings.”