Passive House New Construction...

This is a link to a short article in USA Today. It’s about a recently certified Passive House in Salt Lake City. Passive House design can take on many architectural styles to suit the varied tastes out there, (note the Portland Remodel post), this Salt Lake house embodies a clean simplicity that ‘feels’ good to look at. The homeowners started a project blog that is fun to look at, especially the performance numbers if you are into that sort of thing. One of the primary numbers Passive House nerds like to discuss is ‘how many ACH?’ which...

Passive House Remodel Portland Oregon...

I wrote a few days ago California’s first certified Passive House remodel coming on board in July. As Passive House design picks up momentum, I thought you might enjoy reading about other projects around the nation. Here is an article about a 1997 Portland based home that was remodeled to Passive stands in 2009. Coincidentally, the owner of this home was at our regional Passive House meeting a few weeks ago as a speaker, talking about the process of remodeling his relatively new home to a high performance Passive House. In closing, he was asked what it’s like...

How to: Outdoor Kitchen...

Outdoor Kitchen Project-The Artisans Group Seems like all us PNW-ers like to do ’stuff’ outdoors, whether it’s raining or not. Fortunately, our winters are mild and the other seasons are heavenly, a fair balance, I think. We also seem to like to cook food and gather with friends. Because it’s so mild here year round, it’s an ideal place for an outdoor kitchen. An outdoor kitchen doesn’t have to be elaborate or costly. In our climate, a very basic outdoor kitchen will commonly have overhead coverage, a cooking unit, usually a grill,...

Passive House Remodel California...

I was snooping around this morning to see what’s happening out in the world with Passive House remodels. With housing stock being what it is with a big chunk of the pie dedicated to existing homes and as energy/life costs rise, Passive House remodels will quickly gain a foothold as Americans start to realize the inherent value in energy savings, comfort, and air quality. It’s true, a new Passive House would be easier to build, but, the fact remains that many of us REALLY like our current inefficient,  leaky homes. The only way to super-improve the performance...

South Sound Green Tour Success...

Despite driving rains and aggressive squalls on Saturday, the turn out for the tour was outstanding, and even better on Sunday with the beautiful sunny weather! Folks are genuinely intrigued and curious to learn more about the new efficient technologies and how they can play an active role in a ‘greener’ or more sustainable lifestyle. Mid Century Modern ~ Passive House by Tessa Smith Our designer, Tessa Smith, presented on Passive House design and the inherent lifestyle value, environmental benefits and the surprising cost savings of designing and building to...

Passive House vs. passive solar house...

Unfortunately, the words Passive House often, incorrectly, evokes images of out-there home designs of the 70’s and 80’s… sporting Trombe Walls and double-pane windows that fill with styrofoam beads when the sun goes down. For clarity, there’s a Passive House and there’s a passive solar house (what I described above goes with the latter). A Passive House is designed and built to exacting standards, performance tested, then certified versus a passive solar house built to take advantage of the sunshine that we don’t have. Here we go, in a...

South Sound Green Tour Reminder...

South Sound Green Tour Just a last reminder to check out the South Sound Green Tour this weekend April 17 &18. The Tour sites are open from 10am to 4pm, there is a schedule and map of the workshops and demonstrations here. Tuesday’s Olympian featured a front page article about the Cooper Residence, which will be on the tour. Tessa Smith, our building designer at The Artisans Group, designed the home and it was built by Cory Eckert, owner of Laupen Homes. It’s a PNW Mediterranean-style home with many green features that come together in a very impressive...

Green Tour Workshops at The Artisans Gro...

For the full list of all workshops and demonstrations at the South Sound Green Tour. Schedule of Workshops and Resources at The Artisans Group Design Center : Sat | Sun | 12pm | The Artisans Group Design Center | 1508 Fourth Avenue David Jennings of Rainier Renewable Energy will provide an opportunity for the public to view renewable energy systems up close – Wind, Solar Hot Water, Solar Electric, Geothermal, and Greywater recycling systems – that anyone can add to their homes to save money, live greener,  and be more energy independent.   Experts will...

Solar Powered Cookies,er…Cooking...

Solar Cookies “Free energy“… what could be cooler than that? Well, “free energy” and “food“… Today, I’m baking Solar Powered Cookies in my Passive Solar Oven for snacks at this weekend’s South Sound Green Tour. Solar Oven with Assistant About 20 years ago, I was hired to go to Boston to teach the Fundamentals of Energy at a summer prep school. Given that  the classes offered were electives and there were many to choose from, I was pretty concerned about whether kids would sign up for my class. As a desperate...

Affordable Kitchen Remodel...

The other day a friend, we’ll call her “Mary”,  told me that she was bored with her kitchen, she said she wanted to do something with it, but couldn’t justify a “real kitchen remodel” as she put it. Mary’s kitchen is in mint mid-80’s condition. She doesn’t cook very often, but her kitchen is integral to the great room where all the action of life takes place. So, it’s visible… and boring. As much as I’d love for The Artisans Group to design and build for her a fun, new kitchen, short of that, there is...