Passive House brings Net Zero within reach · 44 days ago
A year ago we blogged about how to build a net zero house. The basic idea is this: build a house so it consumes a small amount of energy, then generate the energy using renewables like solar or wind.
The Passive House takes insulation, air sealing, and no-thermal-bridging to an extreme, allowing the house to be heated by occupants, appliances, light coming in through southern windows, and a small, supplemental heat source – the size of a hair dryer. Passive Houses use about 10% of the heating and cooling energy of homes built to meet today’s energy codes.
Here’s the “aha” moment – renewables are suddenly affordable for a home like this. A 3000 sq. ft. Northern Virginia home, built to today’s energy codes, would use about $60,000 worth of solar panels. A Passive House would use about $10,000. Still a lot of money, but at least worth considering!
— Laura Campbell
How the Crash will Reshape America · 95 days ago
We don’t always focus on “where-we-live” when we think about sustainability. We might be looking for a certain house, or neighborhood, or school district. And while we know that living close-in means less time in our cars, we also know that it probably means more expensive housing.
Richard Florida, in his article for The Atlantic, How the Crash will Reshape America looks at what these tough economic times will do to our cities and suburbs. And he makes a great case for the rise of cities in the information age. To quote from his article:
“The great urbanist Jane Jacobs was among the first to identify cities’ diverse economic and social structures as the true engines of growth. Although the specialization identified by Adam Smith creates powerful efficiency gains, Jacobs argued that the jostling of many different professions and different types of people, all in a dense environment, is an essential spur to innovation—to the creation of things that are truly new. And innovation, in the long run, is what keeps cities vital and relevant.”
Exciting times for Washington D.C.?! And exciting times for sustainability!!
— Laura Campbell
Not So Big Remodeling · 100 days ago
Are you searching for your dream home? Sarah Susanka’s latest book Not So Big Remodeling could help you realize that you’re already living in it. She focuses on how to tailor your home to the way you really live, how to make it beautiful, functional, and durable.
Her chapter on green remodeling has lots of tips for reducing your carbon footprint, and even shows a blower door test in action!
She included two of our projects in her book: a green kitchen remodeling project featured on pages 66, 107, 146, and a whole house renovation on pages 51 and 211.
— Laura Campbell
Passive House Goes Mainstream · 187 days ago
Passive House is going mainstream! With yesterday’s piece in the New York Times, this program for energy-efficient design will get a completely new audience. And it is about time!
Here’s why: If we are to avoid the climatalogical tipping points now fast approaching, we have to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels. It is impossible for us to replace those fossil fuels in the timeframe we have left if we rely primarily on the development of new alternative energy sources. We simply no longer have that luxury; it will take too long to bring these resources online. Our only remaining option is to cut energy usage. Buildings in this country account for 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions. If we cut those emissions by 90%, as the Passive House approach does using available low-tech construction techniques, we will have cut total carbon emissions by 36%.
Then add to that the fact that the Passive House is quite easy to take off the grid entirely. When you are using a total of 11kwh/square foot per year, that translates into a very small array of photovoltaics. Suddenly, with such low demand, photovoltaics can become an affordable option for the average homeowner, not just movie stars.
— David Peabody
Adding Space and Looking for a Simpler Life · 239 days ago
Do you really need more space?
If you think you do, ask yourself why. If it is just to provide room for more stuff, or because the present space isn’t laid out very well, then maybe there is a better way.
On TV and in the magazines we see the pictures of the good life and we are told we can buy it. We buy the clothes, the boat, the extra car, the entertainment center. And then we find we need a place to put all this stuff. And we enlarge our house and take on more debt and more stress from having to work harder and having less free time. And are we really any closer to having the good life? We may actually have moved in the opposite direction.
People often come to us at the initiation of a project with photos of houses and rooms they like, and they want to have these beautiful things incorporated in their own house. I would say 90% of these pictures are of arts and crafts or English cottages, or zen-like rooms free of clutter. And I ask them what it is that they like about these places. While they often answer in terms of interesting windows, or nice trim, or clean lines, what really appeals to them about these places is their simplicity. They conjure the image of a simpler time and a simpler, less complicated, less stressful life. But simplicity is a reductive, not an additive process. By taking on another $300,000 or so of debt, expanding your house and filling it with more and more stuff, are you really moving toward a simpler life?
You are certainly not being very green. There is a maxim in green building that says, “The greenest space you can build is the space you don’t build. The average size of a house in 2008 was 2,350 square feet; in 1950 it was 983 square feet. That’s a growth of 239%. Are we raising noticeably better families within these larger houses?
Instead of adding space, rearrange and rationalize existing space.
Most houses built from the 40’s though the 70’s had small, isolated kitchens, and precious little storage space. It is a legitimate beef that these houses don’t work that well for the way we live today. But rather than doing the design/build knee-jerk solution of putting a big kitchen/family room box on the back, we urge people to look at re-organizing the existing space to adapt to the more open and informal living of today. We try to make existing houses feel bigger, while making them smarter, inserting storage as space dividers.
And when you absolutely need to add space, do so judiciously.
When you need another child’s bedroom, or a bedroom and bath for an aging parent, you need it, and then you have to expand. Maybe you give up your bedroom add a new master bedroom and bath. But remember who you are designing it for—you and your spouse, not the neighborhood and not the glossy magazines. And remember how many waking hours you spend there—not many. So why go overboard?
Design for yourself, not the next owner
Many clients we work with come to us figuratively looking over their shoulder at what the next owner might want in the house. “We don’t want to hurt the resale value” is the usual comment. And our answer to that is that there are at any time thousands of people in the DC market looking for a house and only one family is going to buy yours. So unless you do something really stupid, there ought to be more than a few people out there that think what you did to your house is really neat. Go with what excites you, not what you think the average overall buyer will want. Chances are what excites you will excite someone else just as much. And conversely, don’t put something in just because you think the next owner may miss it. If you don’t need a double sink in your bath, don’t build it. Same with the Jacuzzi tub, or even the formal dining room. You’ll save money in the process.
— David Peabody