2nd Post - Lighting

Greetings!

When reading this blog you will find out that my husband is very excited about the low-tech, low-cost, commonsense energy efficiency features that will be in our home. I, on the other hand, look at the house for design. Yes, we are the yin and yang of home design. 

So when we were talking this morning, the subject was the lighting that will be in the house. No, he really doesn’t care for this stuff. But he reacted when I started to talk about recessed can lighting in the ceiling.

Quickly the conversation turned to how maintaining the house’s energy efficiency requires the envelope of the house to be tight and the insulation to retain its integrity.  They would have to cut through the insulation and ceiling and that would leave small gaps for air and heat to escape. I didn’t think about the cans cutting through the insulation and the leaks until this conversation.

After talking with Ted Nickell, our designer, he informed me that recessed can lights are very inefficient and act like a chimney.  They heat up in the space above the ceiling, and draw the heat out of the house. 

Wow! No cans in our home.   

A dahlia from our front yard.

 

Be Blue – protect our sky - 

During the daylight hours open the window blinds and work by natural light, easier on the eyes and budget.  Best of all, you would be reducing carbon use. 

Introduction

This Green House – The Passive House Way

 

 

History of Our house

It looks so cute!  But what a headache!  This 1925 house was moved to this spot in 1941 and added to a barn, which is the back half of the house.  In the 1970’s it was totally remodeled, destroying whatever charm it may once have had.  All the changes it went through over time made it almost impossible to update for energy efficiency in a cost-effective way.  Worst of all, our 220 year old White Oak tree fell when they clear-cut the land across the street for a development. Now after seven years of keeping up with the problems, we have decided to build a new home.

 

The picture to the left is an old aerial view of our beautiful old tree, house and property. 

We had the White Oak milled for lumber.

So what to do?

My husband and I started to research and talk to people around the area of Portland, Oregon.  Wow, there are a lot of different thoughts and ideas on how to build green and what constitutes a green home. We decided on building a Passive House. This type of building is happening all over Western Europe and may be mandatory for all new residential construction in some countries in a few years. There are very few Passive Houses built or being built in the US today, probably less then 150. 

What makes a Passive House so unique? 

When I tell my friends that we are building a house without a regular heating and cooling system, they say, "What are you thinking!  How can you do that? Are you nuts?"  What makes it possible to get away without a traditional HVAC system is that the Passive House is sealed tight, super-insulated, and equipped with double- or triple-pane windows, and it uses an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) to ensure a constant supply of fresh, clean air. With this house system the heat from summer can’t come in and in the winter the heat generated from appliances and interaction of people isn't lost. 

We had a hard time trying to find an architect and/or builders. Some are willing but others are worried about having to learn a whole new approach to building. There is not a lot of material/information out there to help these professionals along in the US.  So we contacted the Passive House Institute (www.passivehouse.us). Tad Everhart, a Portland-based Passive House consultant gave us the name of a designer, Ted Nickell. Ted was doing passive style dwellings long before the term was coined. When he learned the Passive House way he only had to tweak his designs slightly.

The first time we met Ted was at his home outside of Amity, Oregon.  It was a very hot day (in the 90’s) with the sun blazing down on his house on the top of the hill overlooking the valley below, a quite picturesque setting.  When we walked in I thought the air conditioner was on high, but the air was still and quiet.  It was cool in the house due to the super-insulated walls and high efficiency windows.  (Ted is moving to the East Coast to be near family, so you may see his house at www.rmls.com #8071751 - 8000 SE Sky Vista Dr. Amity, Oregon.)  For the year, it cost just $100 on average to heat the home.      

I had designed a home on paper and Ted has been working with my concept.  I had to change some design elements to be able to come within the parameters of the Passive House standards.  After the drawings are all done, the house specifications will be run through the Passive House Planning Package software to see how tight the house is and to see if we will need to make further changes.  Ted has been great to work with us(tednickell@msn.com).

Ok, here is why many people would not want to build this style of home.

You can’t build a McMansion! Also, building costs are about 5 to 10 percent more then a regular build. Since that's really all that stops people from building this smart, efficient way, helping people learn how to build a Passive Home (PH) and show how easily it can be done is what this blog is all about! 

In this blog I will be providing pictures, video and commentary from design to completion.  Each step of the way will be documented. We hope this will be informative and will inspire others to build The Passive House Way.