Building a Passive Home

104th Post– Fall/Autumn

2012-11-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

#3 in the State of Oregon!

We knew that our home was rated #3 in the state of Oregon through Earth Advantage, but it is now out in their blog so we can share the news:
(It does take a time for it to upload)
http://www.earthadvantage.org/blog/single/the-greenest-of-the-green-earth-advantages-top-5-certified-homes-series-3/
or directly to our case study:
http://www.earthadvantage.org/assets/uploads/CaseStudy_Kugler.pdf

Our home was in the International open house November 9-11, 2012
http://www.passivhausprojekte.de/projekte.php

For more information about PH in the Pacific NW go to:
http://www.phnw.org/Passive_House_Northwest.html
Each year some PH owners open their homes to the public to share what it is like to live in a PH. It is always around the same date each year.

We have been busy this autumn. We have built a shed and a cover for our intake air supply. Last winter we had cold moist air streaming right towards the air intake. At one point it became frosted and hardly any air was coming in, so we built a covering for it. I told my husband it looks like a doghouse.(In back of the blue tarp) The east side is open to allow air to come in. But I had to find a screen from the old house and fit it in. We have skunks around here and I don’t want them to think we have built them a nice home by our intake air!

Vents

Ok, I have to tell you what to look out for in homes being built even now. My friend just bought a new home, it does look nice but she asked me later, what is that? It was the return air vent for THE house! It was at least 2’ X 4’ on the living room wall. She said I want to find something to cover it up. I told her that it is the return air vent that brings all the air back to her heater (HVAC) and she really shouldn’t cover it up. There are just two return air vents one one each level. This builder was trying to cut corners and costs by not putting in more return ductwork. The house will be more drafty and noisy, especially in the living room.

In our home, every room has a supply and a return vent. Bathrooms and kitchen vent the air directly outside! This way our rooms have fresh clean air and the old air is taken away. Read more below

http://www.askthebuilder.com/hvac-return-air-ducting/

Did you know that 15% to 20% of your heating and cooling does not even make it into your home? Sealing the seams on your duct system will give that much more heat and air. The article above addresses this issue.

Natural disasters are really hard on everyone in the area. But one could hope that when rebuilding people would build the right way, like PH. Not like the house my friend bought. Would be builders, be nice and don’t take advantage or use short cuts of those who lost their homes! Those of you, who lost your homes, make sure you are diligent and do your research. I know this may be an overwhelming time but keep your guard up and good luck!

103rd Post – Summer time

2012-09-07T11:47:00.003-07:00

Summer Update

Someone asked if I was paid to blog about our home…No, I wrote this because I couldn’t find a blog that had specific information about PH! Other blogs gave pictures but not details that we wanted to have. So, I am trying to write information that we would have loved to have before we started on this journey. I thought that I would continue to give updates about our home.

Enlarge and count the bees on the artichoke flower

Enlarge and find something on the hydrangea

This summer we have been working on some of the yard, trying to finish the areas we started last year. Here are some pictures of what it looks like now. Inside not much more has been done, but our home has seen a houseful of guest and family. Lots of Barbecues and nice evening!

Last summer, we where having issues with the overhangs/eves and heat gain windows since the sun was coming in our home. So we put up some blinds outside by Coolaroo which blocks 90% UV ray out of our home and drastically reduced the temperature inside our home this summer by 10F to even 20F degrees. The highest inside temperature was 79F with the outside being over 100F for a week. Most of the time our home stayed in the low 70F this summer, very comfortable.

Produce from our garden
The blueberry I just froze

Our garden

Since we have put up our solar panels we have seen a drop in our electric bill by close to 70%. I did have a question if we have a dryer, yes we do. In the summer I hang out our close most of the time but because we live in the west it is very wet. It drizzles or rain 90% of the time, fall, winter and spring, (yes, we do have duck feet) and it would take days for clothes to dry. Plus it would add humidity to our home and we don’t want to have that issue. We have a humidity meter and try to keep our home in the 40%.

During the last six months we have generated with our 3.2 kWh solar system; 2.553 kWh of electricity.

Be Blue-Protect our sky and land-Use refillable bottles- don’t buy water in plastic bottles!!! It takes 400 to 700 years to decompose the plastic. So, if you throw just one bottle away and it was not recycled your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren will have to deal with that one bottle! If that doesn’t stop you think about the cost of gas. Gas? Would you like to pay $8.00 a gallon? When you buy a small water bottle for $1.00 you are paying $8.00 a gallon for water. Check out the site below!

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/03/08/savings-experiment-break-your-bottled-water-habit-and-save-on-h

AND

http://www.businessdegree.net/garbage/

102nd Post – First Year!

2012-05-23T13:40:00.002-07:00

Energy use of our home

I can’t believe that we have been living in our home for over a year. We have been so busy that this year has really gone quickly.

Energy use:

I want to show the amount of energy we use consumed and compared to the energy we use today.

Month

April 2010 1925 house we use to live in on the same property

102.1 Therms of natural gas

502kWh of electricity

Total cost 188.68$

April. 2011 PH house without solar - everything runs on electricity

No natural gas = no Therms

We paid 0$ for pellets for heating this month

1083kWH of electricity

Total cost 116.00

April. 2012 PH house with solar – again everything in our home runs on electricity

No natural gas = no Therms

We paid 0$ for pellets for heating this month

815kWh of electricity

Total cost 90.16

We had a total of 9 sunny or partly sunny days in April. This means that our solar system should produce more in the days to come.

The last two winter, in our new home, we paid 15.00$ for wood pellets to heat our home. Three bags for each year!

What would we change in our home?

We I love our home! So it is very hard to examine anything I would change it seems to come down to money and the budget. That said here are a couple of small things:

When we had our kitchen made I had a lift up spring cabinet for a mixer. The professional mixer is a little too tall for the standard opening and now I have to pull the mixer forward to operate the spring lift. I would have also had the island move a little further back for clearance. Below is the picture.

I would have had the deck bigger like in our plans but the budget wouldn’t allow it.

I would have had the eves on the south at 4’ or 61cm. We will be putting up a pergola this summer with sun cloth to shade our house and deck this spring.

I wish we would have place a doublewide driveway into our garage, again the budget was a factor. One car sits on the street so we can put the car in and out of the garage. We do have two cars but my husband rides his bike to work and I work at home doing art, so the cars are resting for the most part.

We have had some problems with our air system. There was a bad batch of motors that went out and a computer board. We are hoping that all of this is solved! Perfect Climate is so great! We wouldn’t have anyone else! If you live in the Portland Oregon area, I highly recommend Perfect Climate; they are in the building contact list. Ultimate Air has been good about sending new parts and standing behind their product, I just wish it they could have all the bugs out before sending the system to clients.

I hope that this information updates what has been happening around here. I have some more information on remolding home into passive home for the next blog.

Be Blue – Protect the sky - Start growing plants today.

101st Post – Solar Panels

2012-01-12T19:34:00.000-08:00

Solar panels!

Last week, solar panels were installed. A 3.2watt panel, that is to produce 3,200 kilowatts of electricity. This should produce about ½ of our total electrical consumption. We will update everyone on the totals once they start to come in. In the US, the federal government and each state can put money into projects that are helpful to communities. This is one way the taxes that we pay replays the citizens. So with the special deal from SunRun we will pay 6,000 upfront but get that back in state rebates in four years! YA! It is a rental program, which allows you to rent the panel for 20 years and at the end either buy it from SunRun, Inc. or have it removed. So this definitely is a win, win program. We will end up paying Nothing - $0 for our solar power!

You need a couple things:

1. The roof needs a sun exposure without interference from trees or part of the property. Don’t forget your garage, shed or land.

2. A newer roof that doesn’t need to be replaced for the life of the solar system-20 years.

3. Money to have it put on. So if you’re refinancing with the lower interest rates, you can add solar!

Each state is different with rebates. SunRun Inc. works with other solar disturbers. It doesn’t cost anything to call and figures out if you qualify for this great program.

Grant Lindsley
RS Energy, LLC
(503) 752-2885

So if you have ever thought of having solar, call and ask them questions. When you call Grant tell him that you read it on my blog. I told him that I have a lot of people reading. He will get a kick out of it!

Ok, I can’t let the article from the New York Times go by without commenting about it. (The article appeared in print on December 4, 2011, on page RE1 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Zero-Energy’ Construction Crosses the Ocean. by Alison Gregor) First and foremost, Passive Homes can be net zero homes but that is not what these homes are about. We are trying to use as little resources as possible once the home is completed. Even with our solar panels on we won’t be totally a net zero home. We will be close to net zero but we will still use electricity. Our water comes from the city that uses electricity to bring it to our home and so on. We can do the best to use little electricity but there are very few homes that can be a true net zero. Secondly, to say that PH doesn’t use carbon day to day is nonsense. Even here in Oregon State we receive 60% of electricity from renewable energy – hydroelectric and wind. The other 40% comes from coal! On the east coast the electricity comes from nuclear or from coal. The electricity has to come from somewhere and it produces a carbon footprint. Thirdly, is that we were able to find all of the product made here in the US and didn’t have to use fossil fuel to bring them overseas. We researched our home for three years and our PH designer also did a lot of research. It can be done, but you must do the leg/ computer work to make it happen. Ted Nickell our designer, I think had a lot of fun figuring things out. So ask questions and we will try to answer them or send you to a good resource.

If you are considering building a passive home, remember that you may again need to do research. Your contractor may or may not know the information needed to build this type of home. If you want to save money, I mean thousands!!!! It is best that you do your own research and know what you want and where you can get the products. We did research for three years and are very glad we did. We ended up saving close to 50,000!

Rant and Rave - Solar power is something that much of our world should be using! Could you imagine if Arizona put fields of the solar panels up, like fields of wheat? Or Greece could eliminate their countries money plight, by producing solar energy for the rest of Europe? Africa could run wells and heat stoves so women and girls wouldn’t have to hunt for water or wood for fires to be raped and even killed. So on and so fourth…you get the idea! Now, we need everyone to work together to find a way to store this energy! I have said it before and I will say it again…come on you bright people, create a way to store solar, wind and hydroelectric power!!!!!!! Stop relying on an 1800’s way to send electricity…it is antiquated!

OK, advise - take it or leave it…Direction of home for solar panels. The sun rises in the east and will have morning clouds, so to receive the most solar benefit (is after 1:00pm in Oregon State). The best roof direction would be SSW to SW would give more watts of solar (in Oregon).

Work with a great Heating / Mechanical / HRVs installers, ours was Perfect Climate (they are in the contact list). They can help design a system that your architect may not have thought about. This is a way to research by asking others. One of the best things we did was to have a meeting with all the subs, builder and architect to be on the same page and to work out any issues.

Be Blue – Protect our sky – Call today to find out how much solar really costs and the options. Remember we are renting the solar unit or you can buy the panels. Make it your New Years Resolution!

100th Post – Fall 2011

2011-12-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

What been happening?
I will now give my readers updates every season or so. This is our fall update. It is also special because it is my 100^th post!

I’m moving the yard design heading above into the body of the text, since I will up date four times a year. So if you already read these next two paragraphs-sorry.

I must ask that people plant native plants!!!!!!

There are several reasons:

Native plants will grow easier and will be healthier because it is their native soil and climent

Using little or no fertilizers

They support native bugs that feeds our native bird population

The non-native plants does not support native bugs or birds life-chain of life
If you have seen an increase in crows it is because the native birds are not thriving in your area! Crows will take over when they have the chance.

Raised bed in May

Raised beds with covers

Our yard will have very little lawn (which is a grassy area that is cut and watered). Lawns use a lot of water that could be used to water eatable plants. We will be having mostly raised beds to grow food. I found a great web site that has videos that give you step by steps ways to grow food to be sustainable and reduce your carbon footprint on our planet.

http://www.gardengirltv.com/

The grass and blueberry plants in October

Garden/Yard – Here are some pictures that show you how well our yard and garden are growing. We had an exceptional crop of produce this year. I didn’t even take any pictures of our garden…sorry. Next spring I will take pictures and share them with everyone.

Rain garden in October

This is a picture of our rain garden. I planted some native flower seeds and the entire area was bursting with blooms and birds this summer. It was beautiful! This is where the rainwater will be fed to that comes from our home’s roof. The plants will filter the water impurities before it travels to the water table.

The house – This summer, I complained about the heat in the house and the ventilation system didn’t seem to bring in the cool night air like it was designed to. Well, when my husband and sons were cleaning out and changing the filters down in the ventilation system he found another switch for the controls. OPPS! We thought we needed to just turn the switch on the wall in the closest to adjust the controls. Now we know what we did wrong and we will be able to fine-tune our ventilation system for living conditions next summer.

This fall, Oregon has had record rain fall for the first two months and now it is cold and sunny. We have turned on our pellet stove twice and otherwise we have had no heat on in our home! It has been very comfortable.

99th Post – Summer

2011-09-26T09:45:00.001-07:00

Sun and heat gain windows

I’m back! Summer took me outside to the yard and family fun plus I had computer issues.

When we built our home the plan was 4f/121cm eves to help with the sun but the computer model indicated that we needed only half of what we wanted. We ended up putting 3f/91cm.

In June, the sun was only coming in just 5”/12cm in the windows. In July the eves were a good length. But at the end of August, with 90f/32c and a couple weeks of 100f/37c days of heat, the sun was coming into our home through the heat gain windows about 18”/45cm and September the sun has come in even more. Yes, our home did heat up more than we expected about 80f/26c.

We wish we would had insisted on the 4f/121cm eves. Because the hottest days are almost always the end of August.

Next year, we plan on adding a pergola or an awning, to prevent the sun coming in the windows on the south side over the deck.

We haven’t planted any bushes or trees around the house to help shade our home. We needed to wait until fall so we wouldn’t have to water them. So the research is on, for native trees that won’t grow so tall to interfere with solar panels we plan on installing in the future.

So here is what our house looks like with a yard in the back. Check out my yard/garden design information, more is posted.

We have been tracking our electrical use and have found we have some sort of electrical leak. The hunt is on for the culprit. The tracking was originally designed to help us figure out how big of a solar grid that we would need for our home.

Be Blue – Protect our sky – Compost! Reduce the waste that goes into the landfills and helps your garden at the same time.

98th Post - Yard design

2011-04-13T10:43:00.001-07:00

Week 10 - Living in our PH

click on photo to enlarge

With spring around the corner and our older home deconstructed, we can now look to designing our yard. We are just waiting for the rain to stop for a couple of days so we won't sink into the mud/clay in our yard to start the process.

97th – Post – Presentations

2011-04-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

Week 8 of living in our PH

These last two weeks I have been busy with six presentations and a conference. I shared our experience building our PH and learned about other PH at the NW PH Conference in Olympia, WA.

Ethan Beck, Ted Nickell and I presented information on our PH at the NW PH Conference and later fielded questions. One person asked, "What would we have done differently so far living in our home?" The only thing that we have changed is the hard ducting in the mini basement. The hard ducting was echoing the fan noise in the metal and waking me up at night, also it was too loud during the day. So they replace five feet by the ERV and Panasonic fans with a soft duct and it has dramatically cut the sound. Today I can’t hear the fan noise at all. Since our basement is a heated space and not accessible from the outside, we found out that we didn’t need to put in the hard duct. This would have saved us money in both labor and materials to have the soft duct put in at the beginning.

It was nice to talk with people and have feed back and on our build. People were designing all styles of PH and the way they were figuring out ways to come within the PH program was interesting.

I have been asked why didn’t we just build a basement with extra living space. For those that don’t know about western Oregon area we receive a lot of rain and our water table is very high. This month we received 3.45”/6.2cm of rain, this was a lot even for Oregon. Most homes don’t have basements because they would just flood. So when they dug the foundation and the mini basement (3 feet / 91.4CM) they took precautions to prevent the mini basement from flooding. They dug a trench even deeper then the foundation and laid perforated pipe on the ground and on top of that placed gravel. This way water will drain easily and the pipes will divert the water away from the mini basement and house.

There was a discussion about the name Passive House at the PH Conference. I also feel that this is not the right name for this design of homes. Our home is not passive. We have a heat system and an air handling system so people are confused. Someone will ask if our home is a passive solar home? I have to respond no, but we do receive passive solar heat in the winter and we also have a heating system. Now the PH movement is growing it may be too late to change the name but something like Earth Resourcing Homes. Because these PH are about using as little energy resources from the plant as possible and so we don’t have to create new or more energy to power these PH/ERH.

I bet my neighbors are wondering about the school buses that have been coming to our home. They're from the environmental science classes and this educational unit they look at progressive ways to build homes and help our planet. I gave them a short power point presentation and they asked questions then they toured our home. They may be reading this so…Hello, Sunset Elementary School, Wood Middle School and West Linn High School students and staff. Remember students/staff you can always ask me questions and I will try to answer them or send you to another source and this goes for all my other readers as well.

I also went to Lincoln City, OR to tell them about PH or Earth Resourcing Homes and they were asking about retrofitting homes. I know that in Germany, homeowners can retrofit homes in several steps to come into PH standards. I will do a post about this later.

96th Post - Heating and Fresh Air System

2011-03-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

Week 7 of living in our PH

Fresh air is brought into our home by the

UltimateAir Recoup Aerator

ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilator)

http://www.ultimateair.com/

The air is passed into the three zones of the house to the

Panasonic In-line fan

(Blower system with an Electronic air cleaner)

http://www.panasonic.com/business/building-products/ventilation-systems/products/whisper-green-lite.asp

The fresh air is mixed with some of the air from the house and cleaned by the electronic air filters and then passed through the

Warmflo

(Heating units)

http://www.electromn.com/res/html/wf_select.htm

Each zone has it’s own setting and is heated, if necessary, to the given temperature.

Once the air is sent through the house, about 25% of the air is taken out by way of the bathrooms and kitchen areas.

About 75% of interior air is mixed with about another 25% fresh outside air at the Panasonic system and the combined air is cleaned again and then heated and recycled into the house.

Our air exchanges .25% per hour, which means the whole entire air volume in our home, is completly exchanged with outside cleaned air every four hours!

95th Post – Windows

2011-03-14T15:46:00.001-07:00

Week 39 of Construction

Today (March 14), I recieved a call from Serious Windows about the paint. They want pictures to see the problem and try to resolve the issue.

94th Post – Windows

2011-03-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

Week 27 (now 38) of Construction

I have called many times to Serious Windows to take care of a problem and each time they said they would get back to me. I had started to write this post at week 27 and now it is week 38. I just called and still no answer…Customer service?

I have been asked about our windows…well we have Serious Windows and we have had some issues with the dealer and the product. Medallion Industries said that Serious Window paint was baked onto the metal. It is not according to our painter. They said that masking tape would not peel off the paint if it was baked on like we were told. Other windows with baked on paint is very durable and doesn’t scratch or come off with masking tape! I contacted Serious Windows about my concerns and they said they no it is just painted on…with such expensive windows I feel this should be a part of the product like Medallion said they would be.

Another issue with our windows is there is no way to lock the windows in place while they are open. If the window was left open someone could cut the screen and crank open the window. This is something we will have to figure out because we like to have our windows open in the summer when sleeping.

We also had a lot of problems with Medallion Industries that supplied the windows. They were playing the blame game. We had to wait 6 months for windows they forgot to order and tried to blame Serious Windows and us for misplacing their/our order. Well, I guess they thought it wasn’t their job to keep track of orders?!!

Another mistake in the order was the five point locking system we ordered for our patio doors and Medallion Industries said that I had not ordered this feature even though I had it on my on check list. Since these were the patio doors we waited for 6 months, we couldn’t wait for more time to past to receive the correct doors. Especially since the next day we were having our first blower door test. The rest of the building timeline was predicated on the blower door test. The leeks for our first blower test, was mostly around these patio doors and around other doors without knobs just tape and unsealed and uninstalled pellet stove. Thank goodness, we still made a 0.4cfm/50 on our first blower door test.

There is a lot of construction and window industries lingo that is hard to understand at first if you are not use to it. Make your supplier spends time with your order and check off the list, otherwise it is he said she said and you may not be satisfied like us. This is sad especially since we did spend over $14,000 on all of our windows. I know that there are other providers for Serious Windows in the Oregon/Washington area but you must call Serious Windows and find out this information.

We have four windows facing north and one window facing east; these are in the bedrooms. The rest of the 30 windows face south to receive the heat gain in the wintertime.

When I was at the Passive House Institute Conference this fall in Portland, OR, I found other window companies that comply with Passive House standards if others know of more companies please let me know and I will included them in my list. These are in alphabetical order:

Cascadia Windows and Doors 1-206-713-7653

http://www.cascadiawindows.com/

Energate 1-715-685-2793

http://www.energate.com/

Optiwin windows 1-651-925-2866

http://www.optiwin-usa.com/

Serious window 1-800-797-8159

http://www.seriouswindows.com/

It is very important to do your research and receive bids from different companies. I regret now not doing this for our windows. We felt that Serious Window were made in the US and didn’t know of others and felt like others would be too costly, so we may never know how much they would cost because we never received bids. Especially now since we have had not very good customer service with the Serious Windows and Medallion Industries. You may not know that the windows and insulation are what costs more for a Passive House. So take your time and be a wise consumer. We did research for two years to know what type of house we wanted to build-Passive House. Now you are reading this I hope I have given some references to help make decisions or places to go for information.

93rd Post – Inside our home

2011-03-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

Week 37

Here are some pictures of the main living space inside of our home.

92nd Post – Pellet Stove

2011-03-02T10:54:00.000-08:00

Week 37

I wanted to give information on the pellet Stove we have. There were several reasons why we went with this pellet stove. First being it will use less eletricicty then our small heating units. It also gives us another heat source for really cold winter days. This particular stove receives the air to burn directly from the outside and expels the smoke outside. Next it is 84.5% efficiency rating and uses renewable fuel. Plus when we are older it will make it easier to fill the hopper with the pellets. Here is the information on the stove we are using: Lopi Pioneer Pellet Stove

page 5 on the link below:

http://www.lopistoves.com/TravisDocs/98800198.pdf

I know there is other makers and models for pellet stoves, this one is made just a couple of hours from Portland.

Here are the pictures of the stove:

This is the venting system in the house.
The small pipe is the fresh air and the larger is for the smoke.

This is a view outside the house.

91st Post – Deconstruction up to day 13

2011-02-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

Week 36

Here is a great article about deconstruction:

http://www.sierraclubgreenhome.com/go-green/home-renovation-helpers/eco-friendly-demolition/

We have finished taking down the house. It took four men ten days to complete the task.

Next week, the foundation will be removed and the mound of dirt in our new backyard will fill in the partial basement.

90th Post – 2011 NW Passive House Conference

2011-02-25T21:59:00.001-08:00

Week 36

Our home will be one of the houses being discussed at the NW Passive House Conference on March 18, 2011 in Olympia, WA. Here is the link:

http://www.phnw.org/100/7/2nd-annual-phnw-regional-spring-meeting.html

I will be there along with our builder, Ethan Beck and PH designer, Ted Nickell. I have put together a slide show and a display board with information about our home. This is a great way to learn more information about building a passive house. You must register because space is limited.

This is my schedule for speaking about our PH:

March 1^st – School group coming

March 14^th – School group coming

March 17^th – Lincoln City Green Drinks

March 18^th – PH NW Conference

March 29^th – Two school groups coming

March 30^th – Two school groups coming

March 31^st – School groups coming

I will share their questions and comments on my blog.

89th Post – Deconstruction to day 12

2011-02-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

Week 34

PH news – We have kept our temperature set at 66f/18c and in our old home it was always 68f/20c. It was cold and drafty so we were always putting on sweaters. In our PH home, the other day it was 45 outside but sunny, the temperature inside was up to 71f/21c.

I was asked about the deconstruction cost and cost effectiveness for others. We looked into different ways to take out our 2600 square foot home with a partial basement.

To bulldoze the old home down and remove the foundation - $12,000. All of the materials would go to the landfill.

Take it apart and recycle plus remove the foundation prices varied widely. We are using the framing company that built our PH, Eugene of Skyline Construction. When you donate the materials to a non-profit you can use that as a tax donation. So we will break even.

You can also donate the building to the fire department for a practice control burn. The fire department has specific requirements that have to be meet to have this option. But we have an addition, our PH, so that made it impossible. This option is also tax deductable; please check with your tax consulate.

We have sent only two 30 yard waste containers to the landfill. All the rest of our house materials have been recycled. The wood that has not gone to the non-profit center is being ground up for other products.

Here are the latest photos of the deconstruction.

End of Friday

Composite board that was on our outside..it was like compressed cardboard

Saturday..here it goes!

Saturday night

One wall to go!

Sunday

88th Post – Deconstruction day 8

2011-02-16T19:52:00.000-08:00

Week 34

Front of house

Kitchen

More pictures!

livingroom fireplace

looking out to the front

Our daughter's room

Our boy's room

87th Post – Deconstruction - day 7

2011-02-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

Week 34

As you can see, the garage is almost gone.

The roof is stripped of most materials.

86th Post – Deconstruction

2011-02-13T20:22:00.000-08:00

Week 34

What is deconstruction? It is taking down a house in the reverse order of how it is built. So in construction the last thing in a home is the lights, toilets and sinks. In deconstruction it is the first to go and so on.

It is very interesting to know that 85% of the materials from a deconstructed home can be reused or recycled. The only parts that can’t be saved are the sheet rock, carpet and pads plus the tile. It would be great to keep all of these materials out of the landfill. The estimate is about 80 tons per 1000 square feet. So we are not putting in the landfill/dump approximately 170 tons of materials that now will be reused or recycled.

Here are some pictures of the deconstruction. They took out 72 bags of insulation from the house and garage. This was brought to the rebuilding center and sold to others who need it. The Rebuilding Center said that most of the insulation was gone in an hour.

The composite roofing is all off the roof and it is going to be recycled and be made into asphalt.

We have brought in all the metal in the old home to metal recyclers.

Be Blue – Protect our sky – Why? We only have one sky that contains the air we all need!! Do your part by using the three “Rs” – Recycle, Reuse and Reduce.

85th Post – Platinum

2011-02-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Week 33 Earth Advantage/Deconstruction

Ethan Beck, our contractor, came with our certification from Earth Advantage; we reached Platinum level…the top grade!!! Earth Advantage is an agency that trains builders and gives information to people who want to build in an environmentally sound way. Here is a link to their site:

http://www.earthadvantage.org/

Kitchen

Next, we are starting the deconstruction part of our building process. We built our PH as an addition, so now we must remove the old home. The quickest way would be to demolish the house down. But it would not be the most environmentally sound way to put close to 200 tons of materials into the landfill. So this is why we are deconstructing our home. We made our other house to be the most environmentally friendly, so it is only right that we do the same to our old home. Here are the first pictures of the process.

First the all the cabinets, water heater, furnace, toilets and anything else that can be reused are removed.

Kitchen

Our daughter's old room

Next, the drywall is pulled out, carpet and backing is also removed. This the first load to go to the dump.

Insulation with in tacked backing is rolled up and put into bags. Here there is over 50 bag of insulation that can be reused!!!

84th Post – Moving In

2011-02-06T23:21:00.000-08:00

Week 33 Making the Transition

We have been so busy that I have hardly any time to wind down at night before the next day begins. We just finished moving in all of our things from the old into the new house. We haven’t even had time to really put away things in the new house. As soon as it is presentable I will take pictures and share them with everyone around the world.

The next part of my blog is about the deconstruction of our older home. I will also be sharing the heating/ventilation system and the windows. I want to compare what our old homes past heating and electrical loads and cost were compared to our new PH and share them with you.

HEATING OUR NEW HOME:

Our home is shaped like an arrow with the tip as the living area, zone 2, and arms are the bedrooms areas, zones 1 and 3. Zone 2 we have kept at 66F/18C and zones 1 and 3 64F/17C. This is lower then what we kept our older home at 68F/20C. We have found that we are very comfortable at these new temperatures because there are no drafts! During the day with just a little sun our PH warms up to 68F/20C and keeps this way until the evening and then drops to the 66F/18C for the entire house. We are not sure if the heat has even gone on. Our temperature has been in the 50F/10C this last couple of weeks so I know this has been helping out.

It is interesting to see that every Continent has been to my blog and many nations are represented in reading what the passive house movement is all about. Saving resources and then our planet at the same time. Spread the word!

83rd Post – Final Inspections!!!!!

2011-01-23T18:18:00.001-08:00

Week 30 of Construction

We Just Moved in this Weekend!!!

We had all of the inspections this week, so we were able to move our things in. We still have to deconstruct our old home to have the finial. We will start that process February 7. So now we are cleaning out the house and preparing to sell anything we don’t need or want. We are even selling all of the counters, toilets, sinks, furnace, hot water heater and doors. You name it, it will be for sale!!!!

83rd Post – Air Exchange Document

2011-01-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

Week 29 of Construction

For those of you that are interested in the more technical aspect of our latest blower door test here is the paper work from Alan Van Zuuk.

Passive House Blower Door Testing Method General Notes:

First determine the net air volume for the pressure test. To determined the net air volume we calculate the home’s interior volume (drywall to drywall floor to ceiling, wall to wall) minus volume taken up by interior walls and floor systems. All spaces are counted at a 100%, including stair space (unlike the TFA calculation)

Per DIN EN 13829B, the pretest condition includes:

• All intentional existing openings in the building's air barrier are sealed off.

• All doors and windows that comprise the air barrier are closed.

• All interior doors are left open, but closet doors closed.

• The exhaust ductwork for combustion burning appliances is sealed off.

• The supply & exhaust ductwork of the HRV system is sealed off.

• Any fresh air intakes for a forced air heating system are sealed off.

• Clothes dryer ductwork to outside should be sealed.

• Make sure that the fuel is shut off to all fuel burning appliance

• Remove the ashes from fireplaces.

• Setup Blower door on bottom floor of the building

• Observe wind speed, note

• Calculate mean building pressure with respect to outside over 30 seconds

• If the difference between the average positive pressure minus the average

low pressure is 5pa or greater do not continue with the test:

it is too windy.

The blower door/duct blaster should be controlled by the Energy

Conservatory’s Tectite software which will make repeated measurement

at various pressures and then calculate a linear regression for the

most accurate cfm50 measurement, which can then be multiplied times 60

to get the cubic feet per hour leaving the house. The house’s net air

volume is divided into cf/hr@50pa to arrive at the ACH50 calculation

needed for certification.

I had to take a picture of this because it would not load in excel or pdf.

82nd Post – Speaking in Lincoln City, Oregon

2011-01-11T18:53:00.000-08:00

Week 28 of Construction

I have been asked to come to Lincoln City, which is on the west coast in Oregon and speak to a group (Lincoln City Green Drinks: Thoughtful discussions and presentations about sustainability) about Passive Homes on March 17th. This has been such a wonderful experience building our dream home that I am happy to share information and our enthusiasm for Passive Homes! I will be sharing a slide show and pictures and leading a discussion on Passive Homes. Here is the link to their events

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lincoln-City-Green-Drinks/323736837852

These are pictures of Lincoln City that I have taken.

81st Post – Blower door test

2011-01-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

Week 28 of Construction

We had another blower door test/sealing test, but this time using a duct blaster tied into a computer using a PH program. Alan Van Zuuk from Energy Star did the energy audit. He had to use the smallest ring (below left picture) for the blower test because our home is so tight.

Our house made a .19ACH/50!!!! This was the average of the test preformed seven times.

When we found out the results, we called Ted Nickell our designer. I asked if he was sitting down and when I told him the score we just received all he could say OH BOY…Yes, Ted designed a tight home and Ethan built it!

I also realized that I haven’t shared what our wood floors looked like since they were finished. They are absolutely gorgeous!

Be Blue – Protect our sky – Caulk around your doors and windows, it is very inexpensive and easy and will pay off this month in energy saving!