“Build it Tight and Ventilate Right: High Performance, Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery” (presented by 475)

By Passive House California , October 25, 2024 - News

Presentation Description Building high performance buildings, up to and including Passive House certified, means we need to ‘Build Airtight and Ventilate Right’. This presentation discusses the importance and benefits of properly balanced, filtered, continuous ventilation with heat recovery in high performance projects. By using mechanical heat recovery ventilation (HRV) and energy recovery ventilation (ERV) systems to provide oxygenated fresh air to occupants, we can control how much air is brought…

Passive House: Enhancing Air Conditioning Performance (and more), Without Forcing Change | by Brian Pearson & Susan Diana Harris

By Passive House California , October 24, 2024 - Member News

I had a hand in writing an article promoting Passive House and the legislative effort we are making to get it into the CA code: California can fast-track a guideline that reliably reduces heating and cooling energy demand up to 70% below the current Title-24 baseline: Passive House. Together, we can put this climate resilience standard onto builders’ and owners’ radar, simply by adding a voluntary Passive House alternate pathway into…

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…

Speakers’ Corner | A New Passipedia Series (included in your PHCA membership)

By Passive House California , September 26, 2024 - News, Uncategorized

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new offering: Speakers' Corner! This exclusive series gives you a front-row seat to video recordings from the 27th International Passive House Conference, now available on Passipedia. These videos will be available in preview exclusively for iPHA members before they're made public. Every month, a new video will be added, covering a range of topics from EnerPHit retrofits, case studies, policy, and component…

Advanced Framing: Quality and High Performing Building with Less Lumber

By Passive House California , September 25, 2024 - News, Webinar

Most houses are built with a surplus of wood framing that isn't structurally necessary. Reducing that volume of wood means less cost and more insulation, especially in wall assemblies. The course will go over the basics of wood framing, then take you beyond typical framing practices and why alternatives are important. We'll cover framing technical terms like "O.C.," Cripple, Trimmer, etc. and delve into alternative systems such as Structural Insulated…

“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™…

Lloyd Alter and The Story of Upfront Carbon

By Passive House California , August 13, 2024 - News, Webinar

Lloyd Alter, the writer, thought leader, and author of Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle, has a new book out called The Story of Upfront Carbon: How a Life of Just Enough Offers a Way Out of the Climate Crisis. Lloyd will give us an overview of the book and then will dive into a detailed conversation with PHN Executive Director Ken Levenson and with questions from the audience. It should…

“Renovating with Passive House Components” Released

By Passive House California , August 1, 2024 - EnerPHit

The outPHit consortium recently released a brochure covering essential buildingphysics basics when it comes to retrofitting and showcasing their application through a number of case study projects. The publication especially caters to architects and designers interested in learning more about high-performance renovations done to the EnerPHit standard for retrofits according to Passive House principles. Featuring a variety of architectural details from real-life EnerPHit renovations, the brochure serves as both an educational…