Mark and Mike from Massey Masonry apply stucco to our foundation exterior. The stucco is specially formulated to adhere to EPS foam insulation.
Category Archives: BUILDING A PASSIVE HOUSE
Drilling through the foundation, just this once
Unfortunately, the refrigeration tubing along with its thick insulation won’t fit through the 2-inch conduits that are neatly buried under the foundation to emerge inside. The work-around is to punch two 4-inch PVC conduits through the the North wall below grade. And to seal them thoroughly. The tubing to the mini splits will run through the fatter conduits.
Turning on the electricity!
Siding the South side
Siding the West side
With Natalie Pace of Huffington Post
Huffington Post blogger Natalie Pace visited the house on Saturday, pictured above with friend Jim and architect Dennis Wedlick. Natalie blogs about clean energy. When it comes to energy use, a Passive House is the best building standard in the world. We’ll be certified as using about 90 percent less energy than a conventionally constructed equivalent (no need to import foreign oil to heat our house). The site itself is part of the energy story, too. In the mid-1970s, utility companies proposed building a nuclear power plant here, envisioning a cooling tower where this energy-efficient home now stands — on land farmed by Susan’s family at least eight generations.
Wise use of natural resources adds another green dimension because every inch of glass and insulation is calculated to contribute to the high performance of this “machine for living”, in the words of Le Corbusier. More familiar green choices may be our use of sustainably-produced wood products, zero VOC interior paint, and a recycled staircase and cabinets. We’re also buying local when possible and leaving the lower level’s concrete walls and floor unfinished.
Talking to reporters (three so far) is a new and somewhat unnerving experience. This time, listening to Dennis describe how a Passive House works made the 90 minutes fly thanks to his enthusiasm, artistry and technical know-how. It was pleasure meeting Natalie and Jim and we’re excited to see what comes of the visit via Huffington.
Natalie’s bio: Natalie Pace is the author of You Vs. Wall Street and founder and CEO of the Women’s Investment Network, LLC, at NataliePace.com. She is a repeat guest on CNBC, ABC, Fox News, Forbes.com, NPR and more.
Front page of local weekly
Clapboard
The black cube is being transformed with clapboard pre-painted to match the historic round barn and dwellings at nearby Hancock Shaker Village. Seeing this today made Susan suddenly nostalgic for the 1880s house we owned in Rhinecliff for 10 years. SIPs and glu-lams are very cool but there’s something about siding: This house is starting to look like home.
Precast porch piers
Planning the plumbing and HRV
John Tufano and his brother, Rob, will be installing our Zehnder ComfoAir 350 HRV. Today we talked about the placement of vanity sinks, toilets and washers and dryers. Note the plural “washers and dryers”. We doubled up given the pixie size of the condensation unit versus the daily mountain of laundry. Susan wondered aloud if we should have recalculated the PHPP to see if we could pierce the envelope with a traditional dryer vent, thereby gaining capacity and saving cash. But we wanted to hold the Passive House line. Moments after we said, “Hmmm, yeah, this would look good about here,” the deal was done. Decisive hole-drilling by John and Rob closed the door on doubts. Full speed ahead.