“Fire Resilient Envelope & HVAC Design” | PHCA Community Meeting

By Passive House California , March 1, 2025 - Community Meeting

Description As wildfires become increasingly frequent and devastating in California, building resilience is paramount. This presentation delves into critical aspects of fire-resilient envelope and HVAC design. We'll explore how achieving superior airtightness through meticulous envelope detailing, robust exterior walls with insulation and fire-resistant cladding, ember-resistant unvented crawlspaces and foam-free, unvented roof strategies significantly enhance a home's ability to withstand wildfire threats. Finally, we'll address considerations for HVAC-related openings, outlining strategies to minimize…

Windhorse Orchard: a Living Building Challenge and Passive House Renovation

By Passive House California , February 10, 2025 - Community Meeting

This project in Sebastopol is nearing completion and we are excited to share some of the highlights with you. Kristin Nichols (Building Designer/Homeowner) and Spencer Dobrovolny (Builder) will present the project from their unique perspectives. We will dive into the design and construction processes of this exciting project.  We will look at what challenges we faced, how we approached these challenges, and share our successes and where we think we…

Making Passive House Your Sales Superpower

By Passive House California , January 15, 2025 - Community Meeting, Webinar

From Friend to Educator to Advisor Many of us study Passive House because we believe that Building to Passive House can reduce the built environments’ impact on the planet, reduce energy bills and make our homes/buildings last longer.  And many of us believe that this is reason enough for our clients to make the “obvious” decision to only build to the Passive House standards so we walk through our professional…

“Eliminating Makeup Air: Smart Mechanical Solutions for Small Passive Homes”

By Passive House California , October 28, 2024 - Community Meeting

In this presentation, we’ll look at recent examples of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning solutions for low-energy houses in California. The selected examples are trying to achieve cost optimization in the spirit of the original Passivhaus concept building at Kranichstein in 1991. What if the tradespeople were to build a passive house without realizing it? We’ll talk about strategies for approaching Passive performance when this is not a project goal.…

Passive House Meets the Challenge of California’s Extreme Inland Climates

By Passive House California , October 14, 2024 - Community Meeting, Featured Articles

Description: This presentation will share information on the performance-based design, modeling, and construction of a Passive House in Morongo Valley California. The nearly completed home will provide comfort, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and resilience in dealing with both extreme heat in summer and below freezing winter temperatures. The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) incorporates iterative modeling that enables cost effective achievement of desired performance goals. In addition to the…

“An Epic Challenge” | Community Meeting

By Passive House California , August 28, 2024 - Community Meeting

"An Epic Challenge" | Apartments That Are Off-Grid and 100% Renewable, Using Vehicle-to-Grid Battery Back-Up, Cost Effective Embodied Carbon Reduction, Passive House Envelope and Power Efficient Appliances Description Redwood Energy (redwoodenergy.net) designed North America’s first Net Positive apartments (2011) and first New Positive subdivision (2014), won the Grand Prize World Habitat Award from the United Nations (2016), and their Managing Principal, Sean Armstrong, was inducted into the California’s Hall of…

“It Takes A Village: Lessons Learned From Passive House Training And Community Engagement” | Community Meeting

By Passive House California , August 26, 2024 - Community Meeting, Webinar

Description Since moving to Colorado in 2017, Emu Passive has become the main provider of hands-on Passive House training for Builders and Tradespersons across the US. A key lesson learned by Emu from taking Passive House training to local communities is the importance of connecting people to one another during the workshop as well as to the local “high performance ecosystem” after the training. Presentation Elements: Emu’s integrated Passive Design/Build™…

“Water, Air, and Vapor Control: Design Support for Your High Performance Projects” | Community Meeting

By Passive House California , June 30, 2024 - Community Meeting

The mission of 475 High Performance Building Supply is to supply essential materials, building components, and knowledge that will lead a transformation of the North American construction industry toward making durable high-performance, Passive House and zero-energy buildings. Based in Brooklyn, NY with product representatives across the USA and Canada, 475 provides a multitude of products, services and resources to support high-performance Passive House projects. Ian Nimmo, 475’s representative for California,…

Electrification and the Grid | Community Meeting

By Passive House California , June 23, 2024 - Community Meeting

Concerns are often raised about how the growing movement toward electrification of buildings and transportation will impact the electric grid and the utilities’ ability to supply affordable, reliable power to its customers. However, the utilities in California are putting into place plans to support the state’s goals for carbon neutrality by 2045, and to meet the challenge of a clean energy future. Energy Codes and how buildings are designed to…

Passive House | Project Tour

By Passive House California , May 9, 2024 - Community Meeting, Member News, News, Passive House Open Days

“Passive House SB9 & ADUs in CA’s Milder Climates” marked the first in-person Passive House California home tour in West Los Angeles, held in May 2024. Visitors had the unique opportunity to explore an all electric small-scale Passive House Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) and a Single-Family Residence under SB9, both under construction in Los Angeles and designed by PARAVANT Architects. During the tour, attendees observed the installation of dense pack…

“Performance Advantages of Air-To-Water Heat Pumps”

By Passive House California , May 2, 2024 - Community Meeting

Heat pumps are the future of heating and water heating not just in the USA but around the world. Heat pumps, through the near-magic of a carefully designed refrigerant circuit, transfer heat rather than creating heat through combustion or electrical resistance. In doing so, heat pumps achieve efficiencies and “coefficients of performance” between 250% and 500%. Air-to-water heat pumps, like Stiebel Eltron’s WPL monobloc heat pump can provide super high…