Passive House Heating 101-Energy Efficie...

Passive Houses are so energy efficient, it often it takes mentioning a few times for the reality of this statement to sink in: “Passive Houses are built without central heating systems“. It’s so curious and novel and almost unbelievable, in this day and age where the greatest part of our monthly utility bill goes toward space conditioning. How this actually works is quite simple when compared to a thermos bottle, since a thermos is so well insulated the contents retain most of its heat, sidestepping the need to constantly produce new heat to keep the...

Passive House Upfront Costs & Payba...

Ultra- Energy Efficient Home-Passive House We get loads of questions about Passive House, but the two bottom line biggies are: How affordable is the upgrade to design to the Passive House standard? What is the typical payback period? The question of money, and fortunately the strongest selling point of the Passive House  approach! As for affordability, the two main aspects that must be considered are the upfront construction costs and the operating costs. The upfront costs can be fairly modest ranging from 5% to 10% on average. In a Passive House there are no...

How to Select Green Cabinets...

Choosing what is actually green these days can be head-spinning, how can you always be certain that what you are choosing is the best option for you and the environment? For cabinet selection, here’s one good way to know if your cabinet of choice is sustainable:  The  Environmental Stewardship Program Seal (ESP) is an environmental certification program that specifically targets kitchen and bath cabinets, developed by The Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association (KCMA).  This Seal is what assures you that the manufacturing practices and materials used meet...

Passive House Fine Home Building Article...

For those of you that want a snap shot of what it means when someone says “Passive House Design“, this is the article to read. Authored by Jefferson Kolle, in the March edition, Fine Homebuilding did a great job featuring two new Passive House projects, one  in Massachusetts and one in Minnesota. The Minnesota project employed the use of other renewable resources, such as a photovoltaic system, to get the Passive House in a net-zero mode. Both of these projects are aesthetically beautiful homes. The article is really a superb summary of the Passive House...

Best Whole-House Remodel Award...

The Olympia Master Builders graciously hosted the annual Remodel Excellence Awards (REX) this past week. There were many beautiful projects submitted and it’s always a delight to see the craftsmanship of all the fine builders in Olympia. We were greatly pleased to win the award for the Best Whole House Remodel in the $150,000-500,000 category. The home we submitted was a charming and modest, albeit, funky waterfront home that was due for some serious attention. I wrote up a three part posting on it a few months back if you are interested in the full story. The short...

Passive House Training...

Passive House Training By Randy Foster, Owner, The Artisans Group I recently completed the first three days of training as a Certified Passive House Consultant last week.  During the first day of class, I was struck by the fact that there are a lot of really smart people studying the Passive House approach.  I was impressed by that, and I felt really honored to have been accepted into this year’s training program!  Each of the 25 students in my class seemed to fully grasp the fact that designing and building a Passive House is rooted in attention paid to many small...

Architectural Styles...

Want to test your architectural style knowledge? The Oregonian has a down and dirty list of important architectural styles throughout the ages, from native long houses up to Contemporary. The list is comprehensive, but the information is simple, and concise and each style has sweet little illustrations. Each style features: The date range of popularity, the roots or origin of design, style characteristics, building materials commonly used and location in the country where the design is most often found. For those of you who have seen our building, it was loosely...

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...

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,...

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...