The House that Saved the World is a thirteen part production featuring  Eco-Home Builders that are breaking the trail for sustainable buildings.

The production will feature the different phases of project development and critical stages of construction on these integrated energy efficient homes. The owners, designers, craftsmen and crew will share their challenges and triumphs as construction moves along.

For those of you that have been following our blogs, you’ll recognize Dan

Whitmore’s house as one of the homes featured in the production.

I can’t determine what the distribution of this program will look like or when, but here is a link to the site which also has contact information: The House that Saved the World.

With green real estate and appraisals just gaining a foothold and market direction, this website is a nice clearinghouse for what is currently on the market worldwide. Listed Green® Homes – the Green MLS (Multiple Listing Service) exclusively for Energy Efficient, Sustainable Homes and Real Estate Developments For Sale Worldwide.

Listed Green Homes claims to be “committed to being part of the solution by educating the green home buyer and promoting sustainable, energy efficient, healthy building design – helping elevate the market value of green homes and eco-friendly developments.”

Plus, it’s just fun to window shop…

How this actually works is quite simple when compared to a thermos bottle, since a thermos is so well insulated the contents retain most of its heat, sidestepping the need to constantly produce new heat to keep the contents warm. Same as a Passive House.

Given the high insulation levels and air-tightness of a Passive House, it requires almost no active energy to create indoor heat, it is most often sufficient enough for the ‘contents’ (occupants, light bulbs, and appliances) to generate enough heat for the home to remain perfectly comfortable.

Also, without an expensive or complicated central heating system, this cost savings offsets the cost of construction, making a Passive House the most economical choice of all the green building methods out there today.

To illustrate the point about heating, the first image below is a thermal image of a coffee maker,  representing any home with an “active”  central heating system required to keep it warm and comfortable. The red, yellow and green indicate varying degrees of heat loss from the container. The second thermal image is of a thermos, where through “passive” insulation and airtightness the contents can easily retain the heat, you’ll notice no color other than blue, which represents coolness (ie no heat loss).

Building a house with no central heating system can sound risky, but you can see how simply elegant and intelligent it is once you imagine putting your resources into the passive components such as the insulation, air sealing, super efficient windows and a small air handling system for fresh air.

It’s hard to resist the lure of energy independence and a Passive House puts a person well on their way!

Passive House Arrives in North America:  Could It Revolutionize the Way We Build?

Full Story from Environmental Building News

Executive Summary

Originating in Germany twenty years ago and drawing inspiration from the superinsulation and passive solar movements in North America in the late 1970s, Passive House has migrated across the Atlantic. To date, about a dozen buildings have been certified to the Passive House standard in North America, and at least two dozen are in various stages of development. The Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) and its founder and director, German-trained architect Katrin Klingenberg, are leading the implementation of the system in the U.S.

Passive House is a quantitative, performance-based standard for ultra-low-energy buildings—both residential and commercial. The U.S.-based standard, which is virtually identical to the German Passivhaus standard, allows no more than 15 kWh/m2/yr (4,755 Btu/ft2/yr) of energy consumption for heating, the same for cooling, and total energy consumption, including lighting, appliances, and plug loads, of no more than 120 kWh/m2/yr (38,000 Btu/ft2/yr) of primary energy use, which accounts for the energy used in extracting and processing fossil fuels and generating and distribution of electricity. In addition, Passive House standards include a stringent air tightness requirement of 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 pascals pressure difference across the envelope.

While energy experts EBN spoke with like the specific targets, some argue that the Passive House standard could be improved in North America by addressing some concerns, including how the standard works in our more diverse climate, the inherent penalty against small buildings, and the difficulty of achieving Passive House performance with existing buildings.

Passive House could move to the head of the line in Thurston County WA.

Thanks to a Federal Grant, Certified Passive House Consultant Tessa Smith, and a host of others, along with Thurston County, There is a draft document circulating Thurston County that clears the way for Passive House and other green building method permit applications. The document recognizes Passive House by name. If adopted, the documents states:

“This policy sets forth the process and procedures in reviewing a recognized green certified building permit application.

Purpose: To provide a collaborative and expedited review of green certified building permits with a goal to promote development that seeks the greatest possible reduction in environmental impacts.

1.            Any reference to “green certified building permit application” means only such applications that have been certified through Built Green, LEED, NAHB, Passive House, and Energy Star programs

Ultra- Energy Efficient Home-Passive House

We get loads of questions about Passive House, but the two bottom line biggies are:

• How affordable is the upgrade to design to the Passive House standard?

• What is the typical payback period?

The question of money, and fortunately the strongest selling point of the Passive House  approach!

As for affordability, the two main aspects that must be considered are the upfront construction costs and the operating costs. The upfront costs can be fairly modest ranging from 5% to 10% on average. In a Passive House there are no expensive heating and cooling systems so these savings can go directly into the effort of optimizing the building envelope, a key design component in a Passive House. Also, keep in mind that the proprietary Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) modeling software allows us to finely tune a project to optimize the materials selections as well as other design adjustments all leading to meeting the energy and cost goals. There is a wonderful graph that I like to show people to help them get the hang of how Passive House compares in the world of ‘green’ building. In the case of a non-Passive House ‘green’ project the graph shows a steeply increasing cost as more and more ‘green’ selections are made for that project. (For example, adding a geothermal heat pump, or expensive renewable energy system). So the line goes up and up, then we pop the Passive House model in there and the line plunges straight down, back to a modest 5-10%. This is because a Passive House is simple and doesn’t require expensive systems.

Operating costs of a well designed Passive House can be 25% of a typical code-built home (10-15% of the heating and cooling demand and 25-35% of the rest of the operating costs: lights, appliances, and DH, etc.) So, imagine, if the typical home offers a $250 per month average total for electric and gas bills, the similarly sized Passive House next door would have monthly bills of approximately $63. It’s hard to argue about the affordability here, and that doesn’t speak to rising energy costs down the road!

To give you an idea of payback, I plugged in some data in a spreadsheet made by the spreadsheet wizard himself, Randy Foster, President of The Artisans Group. I made conservative assumptions by not figuring in the fact that energy costs will likely rise in the future, and I assumed that total operating energy savings would be 75%.  Here we go:

• Cost of typical code built house: $350,000
• Cost of similar-sized Passive House: $374,500
• % Difference: 7%
• Average monthly energy bill for code built home: $250
• Annual Rate of increase in energy costs: 0%
• Energy cost reduction of Passive House: 75%

So,  the 7% extra cost to build Passive is paid back at year 5. After year 5, energy savings become money in your pocket, in this conservative example, that’s about $187 per month! You can see how that will really add up over time…

We currently have 8 Passive House projects in some stage of development, of these only 2 came in seeking Passive House. Once the other 6 began to understand the concepts of Passive House, there was no looking back. It’s such a delight when a good product will sell itself, and such a delight when socially and environmentally conscious choices make good fiscal sense!

The entire article can be read here. Below is an excerpt to whet your appetite:

August 21st, 2009

“I recently have undertaken a building project with Brooklyn Cohousing following Passive House standards. My clients decided to pursue this course after carefully examining the affordability and predictability of energy usage with the Passive House option.

Predictability: USGBC’s own commissioned report, Energy Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings (pdf), March 4, 2008 concluded “…measured performance displays a large degree of scatter…”  While this is true of other standards, it is not true of Passive House. Passive House has an unparalleled track record of predicting performance reliably. CEPHEUS, an E.U. sponsored program, verified Passive House’s reliability by developing hundreds of units of housing in multiple countries with different architects and contractors. I’d argue that the reliability of the methodology makes Passive House the least risky approach to super-efficient building.  That reliability makes Passive House convincing – and was one of the factors, I believe, that convinced Brooklyn Cohousing to go for it.”

Mr. Levenson goes on to write about ‘affordability’ and payback period, typical characteristics of a Passive House, and a few paragraphs on the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) modeling software. “The PHPP is the most sophisticated static energy model in use today”.

Ken Levenson is a partner in Levenson McDavid Architects P.C., in Brooklyn, NY. Ken also maintains the blog Checklist Toward Zero Carbon.

Dear Editor-

It was strikingly dramatic for me to read John Dodge’s recent article about the Passive House movement, and even more poignant to consider that The Olympian’s readership is becoming more keenly aware of this amazing approach to energy efficient homes.  I am Tessa Smith, Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC) at The Artisans Group.  I have the pleasure of producing home designs that we build which meet the stringent energy performance standard of Passive House.

As the article describes, Passive House is a specific approach to design and construction that yields a house 90% more efficient than a typical code built home.  Unfortunately there is a lot of confusion around whether this is just a recycled version of the passive solar movement from the seventies, or something entirely different.  Good ideas do benefit from the work of previous pioneers, and the Passive House approach does include super insulation and solar gain management.  However, Passive House is a unique and much more specific approach – it relies on the best of many advances in green building, and the approach removes the need for a large heating system, solar or otherwise.  Passive House conservation measures are so optimized that homes can be heated with as little energy as it takes to run a hair dryer.  This makes the Passive House approach applicable to any project, regardless of solar access.  The approach is the best way to meet a growing demand for affordable and energy efficient homes.

A true Passive House goes through a rigorous design process, with attention being paid to the building science of the structure related to both performance and longevity.  A Certified Passive House Consultant designs the project to be a Passive House from the start.  This maximizes efficiency and reduces the cost to construct.  The design is evaluated through a holistic and data intense modeling process, using the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP), including third party verification and regulation from PHIUS (Passive House Institute of the United States).  Performance markers and verification during construction ensure the quality and final performance of your Passive House.

When I first became a CPHC, local interest was sporadic, and more often than not the first time my clients heard about Passive House was from me.  Now, interest in Passive House is being propelled by financial realities: a modest increase in the cost of construction, and a quick return on this investment.  The savings on energy bills pay off the upfront costs in a short period of time.  National interest is overwhelming, and The Artisans Group is being contacted on a regular basis by people interested in Passive House design-build projects.

In response to this rapidly growing market, I have witnessed some firms make claims of offering “passive-like” houses, as if a partial approach could possibly compare to the “real deal”!  One of the many beauties of Passive House is either you meet the criteria or you don’t, and there are no exceptions.  Beware of green washing, if a home isn’t a Certified Passive House, then it isn’t a Passive House at all.  Unless the Passive House standard is fully achieved, a quick return on investment will not be realized; partially meeting the standard will result in a less comfortable, and less efficient house, and one that is more expensive to build and own.

If you want to know more about Passive House, feel free to contact me at the Artisans Group.  You can swing by to take a peek at several Passive House projects that are currently in the design phase.  The Artisans Group will begin construction of the North Residence in July, the first in our county and the second in the state of Washington.  We will be photo-documenting the process, and updating our blogs on a weekly basis!

Incentives to repair that leaky home

Resources: Program examines house’s efficiency

JOHN DODGE; Staff writer | • Published June 01, 2010

Olympia – Eli and Molly Levitt were among the first homeowners in Thurston County to sign up for a program to help area residents and businesses use energy wisely.

When the couple bought a 1913 home nearly two years ago on Wilson Street in Olympia, they knew it wasn’t the most energy-efficient home around.

They insulated the attic and basement, installed compact fluorescent lights and placed weather stripping around the doors, but they knew they could do more.

So they paid $95 for an intensive home energy audit offered by Thurston Energy, a program offered by the Thurston Climate Action Team and Thurston County Economic Development Council fueled by a $1 million federal stimulus grant from the federal Department of Energy.

After months of program development, the two partners are ready to roll out their program to the larger community, hoping to conduct up to 40 home energy audits a week, program director Ramsey Zimmerman said. The audits provide homeowners with a detailed report of the steps they can take and projects they can pursue to conserve energy, save money in the long run and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

www.thurstonenergy.org

“I hope the audit identifies some hidden energy leaks that we can seal,” Molly Levitt said on the eve of the assessment. “We’ll definitely follow up with some of the recommendations.”

After the audits are completed, Thurston Energy will support the customers by identifying grants, Puget Sound Energy rebates and tax incentives to ease the financial burden of energy-saving projects. The nonprofit also has a list of 12 contractors available to do the work, which is where the job stimulus piece of the equation fits in.

“This program is definitely going to keep me busy,” said Bernie Miller of Quality Renovation and Carpentry. “I’m already looking to bring another employee on board.”

Miller spent nearly four hours at the Levitt home Thursday, working up the home energy assessment. His conclusion: If the Levitts insulate around the base of the basement, replace their old hot water heater and insulate the duct work for their natural gas heating system, they’ll cut their home energy costs significantly.

Included in the assessment by Thurston Energy is an offering of up to 50 compact fluorescent bulbs, a 6-foot length of hot water pipe insulation and a low-flow shower head.

The program is also available to area businesses that are customers of Puget Sound Energy.

The climate action team, a grass-roots group in South Sound concerned about reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the community, came up with the idea for Thurston Energy about 18 months ago.

They approached community civic leaders and the economic development council, which, in turn, applied for the federal grant.

The program is housed in the Thurston EDC’s business resource center in Lacey.

“It’s hard for people to argue with saving money, especially in this economy,” said Michael Cade, executive director of Thurston EDC. “When it’s a local group and local people trying to make a difference – all the better.”

“The message is about jobs, keeping money in the community and improving the environment,” said climate action team member Sam Garst.

Thurston Energy has scheduled a public meeting Wednesday night in Olympia to spread the word about the program.

“We’re issuing a call to action on climate change and providing a pathway to savings for residents and businesses in Thurston County,” Garst said.

John Dodge: 360-754-5444 jdodge@theolympian.com