The International Passive House Association (iPHA) just published an article to the topic of why certification is a benefit for owners, architects, designers and trades people. CLICK HERE FOR LINK.
Why is Building Certification so Important ?
Interview with Bronwyn Barry: Women Driving the Passive House Industry
Women Driving the Passive House Industry is iPHA’s newest interview series which aims to highlight the remarkable women working in the Passive House community. The iPHA team interviewed a handful of the many women who’ve contributed substantially to the growth of the Passive House Standard around the world. Here’s our fourth interview featuring Bronwyn Barry the founder of Passive House California. CLICK HERE TO READ THE INTERVIEW
Zero Net Energy Case Study Homes in California, Volume 2
The new book “Zero Net Energy Case Study Homes” showcases all electric residential projects designed for Zero Net Energy and Zero Carbon. Three case study projects are passive house projects in California: • Passive House LA (PHLA+), Los Angeles • Perlita Passive House, Los Angeles • Sol Lux Alpha Apartments, San Francisco. The book is written by Edward Dean, FAIA with the foreword by Andrew McAllister, Commissioner of the California…
Barriers to Incorporating Passive House Concepts in Residential New Construction
Barriers to Incorporating Passive House Concepts in Residential New Construction Whitepaper: December 11, 2019 By Rick Winch, Ellen Steiner, Ph.D., and Jen Loomis, Ph.D. This white paper presents findings from a research effort to identify barriers to, and opportunities for, incorporating Passive House (PH) principles into California's Energy Code. Opinion Dynamics conducted a literature review and interviews with 16 subject matter experts in PH principles, beyond-code programming, and residential new…
PHCA Welcomes Small Planet Supply as a Platinum Sponsor
Small Planet Supply is a North-American company that provides high-performance building products. They are dedicated to the mission of creating both classic and modern high-performing buildings, including those designed and built to both Zero Net Energy and Passive House standards. In addition to supplying high-performance building products and systems they provide education, and training in the use of energy-efficient building materials and practices. They are passionate champions of the concept that…
Advocates for efficient homes set a goal of building 1,000 units in Monterey County by 2030.
Article in the Monterey County Weekly features Sky Ranch Passive House written by Pam Marino, photo by Parker Seibold. When Jay Gentry was a young man he thought he was called to the ministry, but it didn’t quite work out as a career choice. Yet Gentry is a natural evangelist, and today he preaches but not from a pulpit. His message is about the need to combat the climate crisis through building…
How SMUD Re-Engineered itself to Focus on Decarbonization through Flexibility and Electrification
How SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District) Re-Engineered Itself to Focus On Decarbonization Through Flexibility and Electrification. WATCH THE SEMINAR Summary of the Key Points Recently, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) became the first electric utility in the nation to begin evaluating all of its demand-side manage management programs in terms of avoided carbon emissions rather than average savings. In this Building Decarbonization Coalition webinar, Scott Blunk, Strategic Business Planner…
Wildfires, COVID-19 and Passive House in California
Based on the great interest we noticed during the round table discussion “Passive House on the Frontlines: Wildfire Smoke & Indoor Air Quality” we would like to share the following two articles on this topic with you: “How Do You Sell a 'High-Performance Home?” by Lloyd Alter who is Design Editor for Treehugger “Keeping the Smoke Out” by Cameron Munro & Joel Seagren
Passive House on the Frontlines: Wildfire Smoke and Indoor Air Quality
We know that the airtightness and filtered fresh air ventilation of Passive House design delivers superior indoor air quality to residents. These benefits are well-documented and are a key reason that many choose to live or work in Passive House buildings. But what happens when wildfire smoke creates unprecedented levels of pollution with astronomical particulate counts and AQI indices of 600 or higher? Is the superior indoor air quality of…
What is a Thermal Bridge?
A thermal bridge ‘free’ design is one of the 5 fundamental principles of Passive House design and construction. But, what even is a thermal bridge? Why are they important? And how do we go about reducing or eliminating them? We hope to answer some of these questions and more with this post, which has been adapted from the 2016 iPHA Factsheet “What is a thermal bridge?“, originally authored by PHI’s…
Passive House receives AIA Residential Architecture Award
Los Angeles Passive House PHLA+ receives American Institute of Architects Residential Citation Design Award 2020. For more information please visit the AIA Award website.
CASE Passive House Low-rise Multifamily Reach Code Delivers Results!
The California Codes and Standards team (CASE) released their final analysis and review of PHCA's Reach Code proposal and the results are truly remarkable! The summary findings show "In almost all cases, the EDR Margins achieved by the Passive House designs exceed the EDR Margin targets, and in most cases, the Passive House EDR* Margin is significantly higher than the target EDR Margins defined in the report." The report presented…
