Welcome to the EBCA Neighborhood

We are calling the project The New American Foursquare. Our goal for this first house is to demonstrate that Passive House construction can be mainstream construction, both in terms of cost and design. On the cost side, the house will cost roughly $225 per square foot, exclusive of land costs – which places it squarely in middle range of high quality custom homes.

With regard to design, our influence is the original American Foursquare, developed a hundred years ago by Sears Roebuck as the new house for a growing middle class. You have seen them up and down the Main Streets and Elm Streets of most every American town and city. They were designed to be economical to build and efficient with regard to space. These same principles make them well-suited for Passive House construction. The nearly perfect cubic volume is close to ideal in terms of surface-to-volume ratio, and its efficient layout allows for the short plumbing and ducting runs that are intrinsic to good Passive House design.

A fuller description of the design approach is offered by the Passive House Institute (DE): 

The Passive House is the world’s leading standard in energy efficient construction: Energy saved on heating is 80% compared to conventional standards of new buildings. The energy requirement for heating is lower than 10 to 20 kWh/(m²a) (depending on climate), adding up to a low cost of 10 to 25 € per month. Therefore high energy prices are no longer a threat to Passive House occupants. Exceptionally efficient components and a state of the art ventilation system, achieve these huge savings without compromising comfort, but rather increasing it. 



The Passive House concept is a comprehensive approach to cost-efficient, high quality, healthy and sustainable construction. The concept is easy to understand:

• Contemporary construction is quite airtight, therefore the air replacement from infiltration is not sufficient. Ventilating by opening windows is not a convincing strategy either. Getting a sufficient volume of fresh air is not just a question of comfort, but a requirement for healthy living conditions. Therefore mechanical ventilation is the key technology for all new construction as well as refurbishment of existing buildings. Mechanical ventilation will work in all cold and all hot climates since in an airtight house, the heating and cooling energy required will be significantly less. 
• Even though mechanical ventilation systems raise initial investment costs, if designed efficiently they will reduce energy costs significantly, eventually paying off the initial cost. Ventilation units suitable for Passive Houses allow for an economic operation. 
• Now we explain the central "trick" of the Passive House concept: The fresh air needed is entering the room anyhow. If one could use this air to cover the heating load, without increasing the mass flow, without recirculated air, without noise and without drafts - then the ventilation will pay off a second time. 
• This concept of "fresh air heating" is only possible in a building with superior thermal insulation, just like a Passive House. For experts: This is the defining requirement; the maximum heat load should be lower than 10 W/m² , allowing the fresh air to carry the heat load. 

Passive Houses require superior design and components with respect to:

• insulation 
• design without thermal bridges 
• air tightness ventilation with heat recovery 
• comfort
• windows 
• innovative heating technology

For more on Passive House design, try here, here, or here. 

Photocredit: Wikipedia. 

September 25, 2010

NY Times: Can We Build in a Brighter Shade of Green?

Tom Zeller Jr.

Norwich, VT

WHEN Barbara Landau, an environmental and land-use lawyer in suburban Boston, was shopping for insurance on the energy-efficient home she and her husband were building in the woods just outside of town here, she was routinely asked what sort of furnace the home would have.

“None,” she replied.

Several insurers declined coverage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/business/energy-environment/26smart.html