The PHIUS Passive House Builder training is the week of June 4^th in Seattle.  Cascade Built is well represented, and it’s sold out. Great to see so many green builders in Seattle becoming passive house builders and learning how to achieve this level of performance. For home energy consumption it’s nothing short of revolutionary. Home heating and cooling is reduced by nearly 90% and other loads are systematically targeted, for overall 75% reduction in energy consumption, and that’s before you add any solar if you choose to. After tearing into a fifties home to discover 4 inches of insulation, it was disappointing to suddenly realize that we have only added an inch or 2 of insulation to our building codes in sixty years of building. We can do better.

Instead, a condensing dryer is the best bet (they are also referred to as a ventless dryer, since they don’t vent to the outside). Another option is a drying closet, or drying cabinet, Asko has a couple of models to choose from.

(photo courtesy of Askousa.com)

How does a condensing dryer work? Instead of sending hot humid air outside, it runs it through a condenser, and the moisture condenses and is then pumped out into the same drain where you connect your washer. So the heat is not dumped outside and you save energy and money just like that. Does it take longer to dry your clothes? Yes, it does take a little bit longer, but this is a small price to pay for such a huge reduction in your energy consumption, carbon footprint and utility bills.

#1: Know where they stand on energy performance.  ASK: how often do you blower door test the homes you build and how do they turn out? If they don’t have a laser sharp answer then probably it’s not something they focus on, and you will end up with a home that leaks energy through windows, doors, walls, and the roof. Your poor energy performing home will feel cold in the winter and too hot in the summer and your energy bills will be higher than needed. Leaky homes were acceptable back in the roaring twenties but so were horse drawn buggies. You want neither. Code minimum in Washington state is 7 ACH (air changes per hour), and soon to be 3 ACH under new energy codes. For perspective, a super energy efficient passive house is only 0.6 ACH, and that cute craftsman house from the 1920’s is double digits, which is why it’s so drafty and expensive to heat.

#2 : What about your Seattle custom homes specifically is eco-friendly? Almost every builder will tell you they do eco-friendly green building, it’s really caught on the last couple of years to almost every aspect of contracting, and sometimes it’s just talk. Caveat emptor (may the buyer beware), because your idea of green building for your new amazingly energy efficient home may be very different from that of your builder. So ask. What exactly do you do for your homes to make them stand out, or what specific strategies make your homes more energy efficient than the ones next door? In Seattle, there are incentives to build using Built Green 4 star in some cases. So your builder will advertise this, but dig deeper. Built Green 4 star is better than not doing it at all, but it is also not the most rigorous test, particularly if your goal is to drastically reduce energy consumption for the long term. I’m not picking on Built Green. There are lots of standards and each measures different things. Take the time to figure out what’s important to you and make sure your builder is doing that. For example, it is possible to reduce your home’s energy consumption to about 20% of the otherwise identical new home next door, if you wanted to do that. And I think you do, now that you know it’s possible.

#3: Ask to see previous results: Tour homes built, ask for examples of standards achieved, budgets not exceeded, performance verified. And interview the homeowners!
We’re back in a boom as proven by all of the cranes on our skyline.  Perhaps one of them will belong to you.

So what is passive house?  I’ll just gloss over that concept, since you could find more info here, here and here. It is a building standard that results in unsurpassed comfort & energy efficiency.  For the builder it means hitting a very airtight test number (0.6 ACH50), which is about ten times the current code required air leakage maximum (i.e., how drafty your new house can legally be).  It also means optimizing the placement of windows to capture solar gains, and procuring super high performance windows.  Ours came from Lithuania, made by a company called Intus.  So far so good, though we are still waiting on the last couple windows to be delivered.  They are comparatively heavy, with triple glazing and steel frames, so instead of packing them up the stairs manually, we had a crane help lift them into place.

In this picture, you can also see some of the double wall system.  The taped sheathing is OSB with Siga tape, and Joint & Seam compound at some of the joints.  Also visible is the plywood window box construction. We subsequently added vertical TJIs on top of the taped OSB, for our outer wall.  The OSB layer is the air barrier, and it is the location that stops air leakage.  This house will be entirely draft free. Behind the OSB, there is a standard structural 2×6 wall, so in total we have 5.5″ + 9.5″ = 15″ wall cavity, all of which will be blown in dense pack insulated.

Here’s that same window, but now with the outer TJI wall built around it.  As you can see the windows are recessed into the wall system, not just stuck right on the outside of the wall in line with the siding.  It will be more apparent once the siding is installed.

Is all of this overkill? Current energy codes suggest that a 5.5″ wall cavity is sufficient for our climate – why do more? most builders never get beyond this question. In my view, 5.5″ inches of insulation is insufficient for comfort, not to mention the overuse of precious natural resources (oil, coal, hydro, pick your source), and doing your part to reduce climate change might only be a few more inches of insulation.  Passive House may be overkill, it is after all, a very strict high standard that barely anyone adheres to, mostly because it’s perceived to be too difficult or expensive.  I figure the only way to find out is to try it and see how it works.

Siding is going up. We have a vapor open system, so it can breath from the air barrier out or in. I will update as the project progresses!  If you have any interest in Passive House in Seattle or this particular house, feel free to contact us.

By JOURNAL STAFF

Rendering courtesy of NK Architects [enlarge]

Seattle-based NK Architects and Cascade Built are building a house in Madison Park that will meet the standards for Passive House projects.

The team said in a press release that they expect the three-story, 2,400-square-foot house to use 90 percent less energy for heating than a typical house.

Marie Ljubojevic and Lauren McCunney of NK said it will have an open floor plan, with high ceilings and natural light. Wood from a tree on the site is being used for built-in storage units.

The designers said they reduced the need for mechanical heating and cooling, reduced the carbon footprint and dramatically improved indoor air quality by focusing on air sealing and insulation. There is as much as 16 inches of insulation in the walls and ceilings.

They also are using high-performance windows, solar hot water, zero-VOC finishes and a heat recovery ventilator.

The project is scheduled to be done early next year.

Ritchie said every Cascade Built project meets green building standards set by third-party organizations, including LEED and Built Green and now Passive House Institute US.

He said the development process for Passive House has been “a lot more intense than anything I’ve done before.”

Ritchie estimated that a Passive House-type project costs 10 percent more to build than a conventional house. The biggest expenses are for ventilation, insulation and better-performing glass.

Long term, Ritchie said he would like to apply passive techniques to multifamily projects. Apartments have fewer exterior walls that lose heat and require less expensive windows than single-family structures.

Rob Harrison of Harrison Architects was involved with the initial design and later modifications to help meet the Passive House standard. Dan Whitmore Hammer and Hand is providing additional Passive House consulting during construction. Yu & Trochalakis, PLLC were the structural engineers. Jonathan Cohen of ImaginEnergy provided mechanical consulting. Landscape design is by Allworth Design and Donna Bergeron of Donna Bergeron Interior Design is doing the interiors.

Read the complete article at: http://www.djc.com/news/en/12047101.html?query=park+passive&searchtype=all

We entered one of our very first awards this year with our Alley House 2 single family residential project, and are proud to relay that it has been named a finalist in the Green Builder® Home of the Year Awards competition.  As a refresher it is a LEED-Platinum, modular home on an urban infill lot about 1 mile from downtown Seattle.  The house sold in Spring 2012.

The Alley House 2 will appear in the December issue of Green Builder magazine and we should know more about specific placement in the awards program in early December. Stay tuned.  And in the meantime, check out the video of this house being constructed.

The view from the front porch might look like this:

If we were moving into a new house today, we would gravitate towards those without carpet or make existing carpet removal one of the first items on our to-do list.  When we build new homes, we typically choose to not carpet floors, unless there is a definitive reason we must for comfort purposes.  And then as homeowners, we purchase area rugs to soften rooms and make sitting on the floor more comfortable.  So why not just carpet?

Here are the pros and cons of carpets:

Pros

-        Carpet adds warmth, color and comfort to a room

-        It can also provide added insulation for heat and from sound

-        It is less expensive than hardwood or tile flooring

Cons

-        Carpet holds dust and other allergens that can be problematic for those with respiratory challenges

-        It is a conducive environment for dust mites and other pests

-        It can retain moisture creating mold that can be toxic for those with allergies

-        It is difficult to clean

-        It captures stains and odors, particularly in households with pets and children

Are you in the ‘to’ or ‘not to’ camp?

Designed by Nicholson Kovalchick Architects, the 2,300 square foot single family home located in Seattle’s Madison Park neighborhood has been designed and is being constructed to meet the rigorous standards of the Passive House Institute US standards for Passive House certification by reducing heating energy consumption by nearly 90%. Jokingly, we tell people we plan to heat the house with a hairdryer, though that does represent the approximate level of heat needed, as a result of extreme attention to detail in air sealing, high levels of insulation, and high-performance windows. The 4bd/3ba home also features solar hot water, PV ready, salvaged woodwork from a site harvested tree, zero VOC finishes, a heat recovery ventilator, and more. True to our style, this beautiful home is built on an in-fill city lot that measures just about 2,000 SF.

Watch this space for progress!