The new owners recently shared with me their energy use numbers from August 2013 through they present. They are indeed impressive, and 30% lower than our energy model predicted, with an average total energy cost of $145/month. Remember this is a 4400 sf house! That works out to be just under $.40/sf/year.
Complete Blog of Our First Passive House
Some impressive recent energy use numbers
Completion of the blog for the American Foursquare
This house was completed in mid-2011. We have left the blog up so that others might learn something about building Passive Houses from our process. The house has performed very close to our energy modeling projections. Average total energy costs for the house have run around $2400/year for a busy family with lots of small […]
Passing the baton
Last fall Ian and Lydia Kline moved from Boston to Washington and purchased our house. Brendan and I could not have asked for a more perfect family. We all thought it might be informative to the Passive House community if Ian and Lydia now continue this blog and give a different and equally important perspective […]
FINAL CERTIFICATION
It is official. We have been certified by the Passive House Institute – US as a Passive House. Because the application and certification occurred before the split between PHIUS and PHI (the mother organization in Germany), our understanding is that our project is certified by both organizations. We are the 24th building to be certified […]
Under Contract!
Last week we signed a contract on the house! The closing will be at the end of the month. The new owners could not be a nicer family! We also received informal notice that the house has passed all certification criteria, so hopefully we will have a certificate soon to present to the new owners. […]
WE’RE ON NPR! Posted from: MD, USA Jessica Gould of WAMU came by the house on Friday and did a piece on the house during Morning Edition today. Here’s the link: http://wamu.org/news/11/06/27/bethesda_home_is_areas_first_passive_house.php
CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE! REAL ESTATE OPEN HOUSE 6/5.
Posted from: MD, USA Come and see it! 4717 North Chelsea Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814. All work is now completed except for punch list items, and the house is now being shown by Sondra Mulheron, our real estate agent. Come and see it! We will be having real estate open houses for the next few […]
Highlights from Innsbruck: The 15th International Passive House Conference June 2, 2011 I have just returned from the annual Passive House conference in Innsbruck, which included around 1200 architects and builders from some 46 countries. The Passive House approach has truly become global. While fresh in my mind, I have tried to summarize—in no particular […]
Getting to Net Zero Energy: Passive House vs Energy Star
There is a lot of talk about net zero energy (NZE) houses. Clearly that is the goal if we are to live sustainably. But it is a difficult goal to achieve, even with a Passive House. The reason is that even though we may cut our heating and cooling costs by 90% with a Passive […]
Comparison of projected energy costs between this house and a hypothetical identical house built to the Energy Star standard Posted from: MD, USA During Earth Week we were asked to do presentations at NIH and DOE on this house. In preparation for that I revisited our cost numbers and our energy numbers for the house […]
Status report
Posted from: MD, USA A few pictures of the house and an update on what is going on. Porch decking is now installed on front and side porches. Deck framing at west side (to left in this picture) has just gone in. Here is Slavko setting the outdoor condensing unit for the heat pump. Paving […]
Passive House Plans Available We originally designed the New American Foursquare to serve as a prototype Passive House, one that could be replicated affordably in several sizes and configurations. Informed by the experience of building this house, as the project nears completion we are now developing two suites of plans to offer to the public. […]