This project is personal: the renovation of our family’s house in Maine. It is a work in progress. The goal has been to take care of a century of deferred maintenance and to make the house as energy-efficient as possible for year-round living. The great challenge has been to make all this work invisible, so […]
David Peabody
FAIA, LEED, Passive House Certified Consultant, David Peabody has led Peabody Architects, in Alexandria, Virginia, since 1992, designing over 100 homes and additions. At the turn of the millennium, he committed the practice to sustainable residential design, becoming a Passive House Certified Consultant in 2009.
Deep Energy Retrofit of a 19th Century Maine House
A proposed microgrid community of modular net zero homes
This YouTube video is a presentation we just did for a community development group in Virginia interested in developing a new neighborhood of high performance net zero energy homes. Our concept is based upon using a combination of several basic modular designs to create both single family homes and duplexes. We show them with both […]
The Microbiome and Your Home
I have been reading recently of developments in the study of the human microbiome and its interconnection with the larger environment. It is changing my thinking about how we should be building our houses (and hospitals!). A microbiome is basically the collection of organisms that inhabit a particular environment, be that the intestine or a […]
Recent speaking engagements
It has been a long time since our last post and I’ll start with an update of some speaking engagements, as we have continued over the last year to get out the word on high performance building design. In June, Matt and David both gave presentations at the Arlington Initiative to Rethink Energy workshop On […]
Work underway on Landmark DC Carriage House Deep Energy Retrofit
Construction is underway on our first deep energy retrofit of a historic structure. The Spencer Carriage House, listed as a DC Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1905 to serve one of the large mansions in the Dupont Circle area. It is one of the last of these carriage […]
Move-in day for Fairfax Net Zero House
On Saturday, April 15 Tom and Joyce moved into their new home. There is still work to be done in completing the garage and landscaping but the house interior is totally complete right on deadline. A couple of weeks before, they opened up the house to City of Fairfax officials for a tour, which was filmed in […]
Open House at Fairfax Net Zero Home on March 25
The Fairfax zero energy home will be complete within the month, and the garage is expected to be complete by mid-May. Our will be opening the house on the 24th to Fairfax County officials, and have generously allowed us to follow up that tour with two open houses on Saturday the 25th. The morning tour is […]
Christmas update on the Fairfax Zero Energy House
We are getting near completion of the project, as painters are busy finishing walls and trim and we continue to await the arrival of the high pressure laminate paneling for the exterior. We are now told that that will be in the first week of January. All the areas on the exterior that are now black will […]
The Fairfax Zero Energy House: Mechanical system overview
The mechanical system for the Fairfax house differs from our earlier houses in several ways. We have zoned the house differently; we have taken a different approach to the heating and cooling equipment; and we have changed the ERV equipment. This house is zoned from side to side rather than up and down. This decision had to […]
The Fairfax City Zero Energy Home: Building Envelope Discussion
Our last post for this project was back in June, and we have come a long way. I want to focus in this post on our decisions about the building envelope. The exterior wall framing of the house is 2×6 wood stud construction, filled with densepack cellulose insulation. Our original plan was to clad this […]
Our Team Wins Project for 8 Zero Energy Ready Homes in Fairmount Heights
The Prince George’s County Department of Housing and Community Development has just announced The Housing Initiatives Partnership (HIP) the winner in a competition to develop eight abandoned home sites. Seven of those sites are in the town of Fairmount Heights; one is in Capitol Heights. HIP, a non-profit affordable housing developer in Prince George’s County, […]
Direct Current Microgrids: The Next Big Thing
By far the most exciting development in building construction today has little to do with building construction; it has everything to do with how we power our buildings. Passive House techniques have perfected how we assemble the building envelope and how we heat, ventilate and cool buildings. Through these techniques we have been able to […]