OHFA's Housing Development Team announces the publication of our updated Rehabilitation Construction Standards for our CPD programs (HOME, NHTF, HOME-ARP). These updated standards align OHFA’s rehabilitation requirements with the 2025 HOME application and clarify what our inspectors will be looking for during site visits.
Written Rehabilitation Standards
As a many of you work to fit the 2021 IECC requirements into your developments, we have received a request to clarify how partially prefabricated units will be inspected. After some internal discussion, and after discussing this with our contracted inspectors, we determined that the inspection of prefabricated or partially prefabricated units will be as follows:
- For the portion of the unit built off-site, OHFA will require a self-certification from the quality inspector who oversees the unit manufacturing. The quality inspector must be familiar with the 2021 IECC requirements and be able to monitor the construction of the unit throughout the assembly process. This certification, certified to both PMg and OHFA, needs to include a list of the 2021 IECC related materials used in the production of the unit, provide photos of material installation, and state that the inspector has ensured that all 2021 IECC codes were met in the factory construction / assembly. This certification needs to be delivered to PMg and OHFA prior to the prefabricated portion being installed at the property. This certification must be tied to the specific unit produced with HOME funds via a serial number or other identification.
- One of PMg’s licensed inspectors will still need to be able to inspect the slab and any site-built construction work for code compliance.
Finally, OHFA received a request to review how a HERS rating may be used to satisfy the 2021 IECC requirements. After some research, it was determined that it is possible to use a HERS score to meet the ERI (Energy Rating Index) score requirement in the 2021 IECC, however, the use of a HERS score to satisfy the ERI it does not remove any of the additional code requirements. While the ERI and HERS are both ways to express energy efficiency, and they look at similar items such as ventilation rates, duct leakage, on-site renewable energy treatments, and thermal envelope backstops, they assign different values to these items. The HERS index allows for flexible assumptions to achieve the same score while the IECC has mandatory minimum requirements such as insulation levels and window U-factors regardless of the ERI score. Posting a HERS score alone would not be sufficient to achieve code compliance.
