October 3, 2014 This past weekend saw a lively debate on Twitter between Martin Holladay, myself and a few other Tweeps over what amounts to a few inches of insulation. It followed a very successful North American Passive House Network 2014 (NAPHN14) Conference & Expo in Maine, where I had the pleasure of seeing Martin …
Passive House is a building standard. It is a voluntary international building standard developed by the Passive House Institute (PHI), located in Darmstadt, Germany – referred to also as The Passive House Standard. The Passive House Standard is composed of several strict performance requirements for new building construction. For the renovation of existing buildings PHI …
Conjure an image of home. Of your elementary school. Of your office. They’re familiar. Now imagine your own Passive House. More difficult, right? But what if Passive House can describe a school, an apartment building, a factory, an office or a home? And it does. What if Passive House design can be modern, historical, vernacular, …
The 19th Annual International Passive House conference (#iPHC19) was held in Leipzig, Germany on April 17th and 18th. With large contingents attending from North America and China, as well as an emerging group of practitioners stretching across the Mediterranean from Turkey to Portugal, the global effort of Passive House was palpable. The project types continue …
If there is a question as to what it means to be a Passive House, please see the blog post “What is Passive House?” But if there is a question as to the history of Passive House, the public domain and trademarks in the US, let’s review: The Passive House Institute (PHI), founded in the …
Building to the Passive House Standard[1] reduces our buildings’ operational energy demand to an optimized extent through passive measures and components such as insulation, airtightness, heat recovery, solar heat gains, solar shading and incidental internal heat gains. Passive House reliably delivers up to approximately a 90% reduction in heating and cooling demand and up to a …
Building Efficiency and Blower Doors: Essential Responses to Sandy By Ken Levenson, “Superstorm Sandy has produced a torrent of meetings, plans, reports, announcements and actions by city, state, federal and non-governmental organizations. Today, before their terms expire, the New York City Council and Mayor are racing to pass important legislation based on these past months …
The North American Passive House Network would like to extend an open invitation for dinner to anyone attending the IPHC in Leipzig this year. This will be the 5th dinner hosted by the NAPHN at the conference. In the spirit of the North American immigrant tradition, we welcome attendees from across the continent and around the globe to participate in …
The first North American Passive House Network 2014 Conference & Expo wrapped up in Portland, Maine, last week and was by all accounts a resounding success. Attendees hailed from across the United States and Canada. A significant number of foreign guests and presenters lent an international flair to this event. Passive House advocates from Germany, …
We are happy to make the NAPHN14 conference presentations available for wider use. Please see link to a Dropbox folder here.