A Brooklyn, New York-based architecture firm transformed a home in Queens into a beautiful space that meets Passive House energy efficiency standards. Architectural magazine Dezeen said CO Adaptive took every opportunity to make it as energy-efficient as possible and came away with a building that produces more energy than it needs.
Each year, the average person in the U.S. is responsible for about 14 metric tons of carbon pollution, which leads to the overheating of the planet and contributes to extreme weather events that threaten the global food supply. It's a dangerous chain reaction.
Turning your home into a Passive House seeks to minimize your contribution to that cycle.
To prevent the loss of heat, the renovation team removed the floors and subfloors and installed an airtight membrane, then replaced the floors with reclaimed red oak planks. The team also installed larger windows to let in more light.
Any through-wall air conditioning units were replaced with energy recovery ventilator systems, which remove stale air from inside and replace it with fresh air from outside while regulating temperature and the amount of moisture in the air. Outdoor-operable Venetian blinds were also installed on south-facing windows to help regulate temperature.
The entire house is powered free from the electric grid that depends on dirty energy. This is thanks to the solar panels installed on the roof that provide more than enough energy to run everything in the house, which was refitted to be fully electric.
As a little cherry on top, any of the materials removed that could be reused were separated by type and repurposed elsewhere.
Besides having a positive impact on the environment, renovating your home in this way also has a positive impact on your wallet by virtually eliminating electric utility bills.
"We want to work on simplifying and scaling this endeavor," said CO Adaptive co-principal Ruth Mandl, "ideally ensuring that we can bring the cost down on Passive House for our clients and make it a solution that is more affordable and available."
Passive Houses are slowly becoming more common.
Retired writer David Noland recently built a solar-powered house that, like the home highlighted in this story, produces twice the energy needed to power the house.
A Boston suburb recently certified its first single-family Passive House.
And, in what is hopefully the first of many, the Winthrop Center, a skyscraper in Boston, recently became the world's largest Passive House office building. Completed in 2023, the plan was to build it to be a Passive House from the development stage.
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