See you soon for the 2025 PHCA Community meetings.
Community Meetings will be back in January 2025
“Eliminating Makeup Air: Smart Mechanical Solutions for Small Passive Homes”
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
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
"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
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
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
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
“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”
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…
Passive House SB9 & ADUs in CA’s Milder Climates
Passive House design is becoming increasingly popular in Southern California due to its focus on energy efficiency, making it a leading example of high-performance design and construction in the region. Passive House protocols provide homeowners improved comfort, indoor air quality, and resilience to extreme weather, fires, smoke, and power outages, as well as a more durable home that consumes less energy. Join us to discover the implications of California's SB9…
“17 Mile Haus: A Passive House Design Journey”
Passive House design is receiving heightened interest across the country due to growing awareness of the impact of buildings on carbon emissions. This presentation will look at how Passive House is applicable here in California, using a project located on Pebble Beach’s storied 17 Mile Drive. Join us to learn about the evolution of this design, the details that support how it performs, plus a look at the impact of the…
The Benefits of Right-Sizing Plumbing in Homes & Apartment Buildings
Effective July 1, 2024, the Appendix M, Peak Water Demand Calculator (WDC) will become part of the California Plumbing Code. Instead of using flow rates and flush volumes from the 1940s, the WDC will allow you to “right-size” the cold and hot water distribution systems in homes and apartment buildings using modern information about flow rates and simultaneous use. Does this sound like a snoozer? Actually, it is an environmentally…
