We’ve been talking about Passive House in this blog for the past couple of days in accessible and precise detail, thanks to the insights of architect Ken Levenson. Another exciting project appears to be unrolling in Philadelphia that seems to straddle the worlds of Passivhaus (Passive House) and Net Zero. Post Green’s blog is the best source for information on the project, but a few elements stand out for us:
1. The Post Green project is based in Philadelphia, a city notoriously maligned for its inactivity. (W.C. Fields famously quipped, “Last week, I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed”). Chin up, Philly, this could be big.
2. The house aims to be net zero, meaning that it produces as much or more energy than it uses. In this case, the sale of generated daytime (peak) power generated by the house will outweigh the cost of purchasing night-time power. Despite that, the house is likely to sell for less than $300,000. Imagine paying so little for a house that receives monthly checks from the utility company! Amazing.
3. Occupants count. Although the project blog acknowledges considerable pride in the design features that will make the house efficient, this project, like the Thousand Home Challenge, is decidedly human in nature. As co-founder Nic Darling writes, with a dash of humor, it all comes down to occupant behavior:
Now, an important thing to note is that while the construction of the home is important to achieving Net-Zero Energy, the behavior of the occupants is also a crucial element. If the people living in the home leave their lights on 24 hours a day while also spending a good portion of that time in front of their open fridge blow drying their hair, then it doesn’t matter how well the home was built. This is particularly true of our homes which are built at low margins and leave less room for excess than a behemoth carrying a huge roof full of expensive panels. Conservation is a key component here and much of that is up to those living in the home. (Hear that you guys?).
So, yes, these guys are giddy about their insulation and their air-sealing. They are revved about their solar panels (and the mortgage break they are getting related to renewable energy incentives). But they won’t declare victory until they’ve seen their house in action. This makes a world of sense to us. An empty house isn’t efficient.
Needless to say, we are thrilled that they intend to determine whether or not they’ve made the grade by measuring. We’ve not met a good alternative to that approach yet. Here's Darling again:
It takes a year of energy readings to determine if a home is truly Net-Zero, and you can bet we’ll be keeping track. With any luck, by September of next year we will be celebrating our first official Net-Zero home. And, since we are building all of our future homes to the same standards, we will hopefully be celebrating the first of many.
We will keep you posted and hope to report good news about a promising project.
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