High Street Passive House. (Images: Wright Construction)
Greg and Barb Whitchurch
If you want to shop around to design a beautiful new home, visit Patricia Chen’s website, www.PC-Architecture.com/. Chen, the architect of High Street House in southern Vermont, is also the owner of this three-story, all-electric, super-comfortable and high-performance home. To realize her plan, she picked a verified standard of building, and then chose Wright Construction of Mt. Holly, VT (www.WrightConstruction.com) to make it all happen.
The home is a certified Passive House (PH) (www.bit.ly/phius-highstreet). It exemplifies the core principle of PH: meticulous attention to detail – executing the fundamental elements of construction with precision, and focusing on energy efficiency and durability at every stage.
Chen is a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC) herself, and this is her first PH. To meet the PH standard of quality and efficiency, she outfitted the house with a Rheem heat pump water heater, a GE whole-house heat pump for heating and cooling, RenewAire ventilation for constant filtered fresh air, and Alpen triple-pane windows and doors.
For years, PH construction has been portrayed as an expensive ideal, shrouded in complexity. Builders sometimes shy away, citing concerns about the rigorous standards and oversight. But the truth is PH is not magic; it is simply good building. And projects like High Street House demonstrate just how attainable it can be.
The PH standard is independent of style or interior design needs. Joe Poston of Wright Construction, the builder, shared his experience, “This was our first PH, and the biggest difference between a PH and a regular house just comes down to details, air sealing, and a lot more insulation.” (www.bit.ly/ph-90).
So, why the hesitation among some builders? Poston confessed to initial anxieties. “I was … concerned about completing the project and not meeting the required goals,” he said. This fear of the unknown is understandable. PH construction involves a learning curve, a shift in mindset from run-of-the-mill practices.
However, as Poston discovered, PH is far from daunting, “The process is much more straightforward than I imagined. There are checks along the way to make sure we are headed in the right direction and haven’t gone too far down a road of building-in problems that could cause a failure. Now that we have completed one, I wouldn’t shy away from doing it again.”
Well-insulated foundation sealed with Stego air and moisture barrier.
The oversight is another common concern: third-party experts representing the owner oversee the design and construction. “It is both a nuisance and a blessing at the same time,” Poston explains. “Yes, we don’t like having someone looking over our shoulder while we work, but the rater we worked with was helpful in pointing out areas that are problematic, so we knew where to be extra careful on assembly.” One can see how this conflicts with the current accepted practice of ‘Lowest bid, cheap materials. Get ‘er done. On to the next project!’ Our homes deserve more integrity and care than that.
Constructive oversight is a valuable piece, acting as a safeguard for both the builder and the owner. Just as we rely on organizations like UL, C-E, Energy Star and NHTSA to certify the safety and performance of our appliances and cars, our homes deserve independent oversight. Having an internationally recognized authority like PHIUS (www.PHIUS.org/) standing behind a home’s certification ensures the value of the homeowner’s investment.
PH is not at the end of some continuum of bespoke quality and excessive efficiency. It is dead center of price point, offering the most bang for your buck, maximizing payback and ROI (return on investment), and avoiding the trap of doing less at first and paying higher utility bills forever. There are already several hundred Certified Passive House building professionals serving New England.
And, there are several tens of thousands of PH buildings: homes, apartment buildings, recreation centers, university dorms, high-rise office buildings, prisons, hospitals, clinics, resorts, and more built to this standard worldwide. Some jurisdictions around the world, even in the U.S., are making PH a standard in their building codes. It simply makes sense to build well, save on operational costs and maintenance, and make occupants more comfortable, healthy, and happy. (The filtered air inside a PH is much safer and fresher than the air outside.)
PH is not about exotic new materials, but rather employing the better materials already on the local markets. Instead of using standard house wraps, more robust and “smarter” membranes are preferred. Instead of conventional hydrocarbon-based tapes and caulks, acrylic-based products are recommended for their superior performance and longevity.
Insulation values are chosen with calculations based on science and engineering principles, focusing on the specific climate zone. PH also considers the solar orientation of the building and its windows, so that solar gain in the winter and shading in the summer can inform the insulation specifications.
PH construction offers another significant benefit: resilience. These homes withstand extreme weather events and power outages, protecting the occupants within a secure envelope, thereby putting less strain on community emergency shelters and other resources during disasters – one reason municipalities are embracing PH.
The initial investment for a PH-quality home is typically 3-5% higher than conventional construction. However, this upfront cost is quickly recovered through significant energy savings. From day one, homeowners with mortgages pay a slightly higher mortgage but much lower monthly utility bills, adding up to immediate savings. These financial benefits, coupled with enhanced comfort, health, and environmental benefits, make PH a compelling choice.
For these authors, the most crucial element of our own PH construction was the third-party consultation and verification. This provided important engineering input; ensured that the builder met the standards; and delivered a truly high-performance home. Finding a builder and designer who welcomed this collaboration was essential (www.bit.ly/vtph-phc).
PH is not a mystical, expensive endeavor; it is a practical, affordable, science-based process. Any builder can build to the PH standard. It is time to dispel the myths (www.bit.ly/eb-ph-myths) and embrace the reality: PH is a smart investment – for the owner, the occupants, and the community.
The Whitchurches’ current PH is pictured in the Montpelier Construction ad on page 28; they are designing a net-positive, aging-in-place PH for themselves using environmentally responsible materials www.bit.ly/get-w-build.
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