Passive House Open House

A giant thank you to our clients, Jeff and Sue!  

On November 9th, they hosted a wonderful Open House of their under construction home for friends, neighbors, and people curious about Passive House building technology.  This gave people a great chance to see the bones of a Passive House while it was still being built, as well as a chance to talk with Jeff and Sue about their decision to build a sustainable home in Olympia; and they responded.

Not only did Lisa Pemberton and Steve Bloom stop by to prepare an article in The Olympian about this super energy efficient home, we’ve also been peppered with wonderful questions and comments about sustainable design and construction in the Pacific Northwest.  Several of our past clients even stopped by to see the latest addition to the Passive House landscape and share the wonders of their own homes (see below).

Again, thank you Jeff and Sue for sharing your future home with everyone.  

Thank you Dillinger’s Cocktails and Kitchen for the delicious appetizers; thank you Sophie’s Scoops for the scrumptious Gelato, and thank you to our very own carpenter, DJ KulRaul, for the excellent background music. 

 And a huge thank you to our field crew!  You made this the cleanest, most festive, and most accessible construction site that anyone in Artisans Group has ever seen.

Successful Energy Efficient Homes

As I mentioned above, some of our past clients stopped by the Open House.  

One of our clients even brought utility bills to show people that the results of Passive House are real, and gave us permission to redact the identifying information and blog it!  Check out these October, 2017 numbers (Passive House building science is a beautiful thing, and I’m completely envious):

So what are we looking at here?  Well, over an 11 month period this home’s average electricity use was about 280 kWh per month, in other words, this home used less than 1/3 of the electricity of the average Washington home (1041 kWH per month).

And yes, that really is a $20 Natural Gas bill.

Why Passive House?

From everything we have studied, and from over 20 years of residential building experience, Passive House represents the best available science for reliably and cost effectively designing and building a sustainable home.  

Then there’s the Indoor Air Quality of Passive Houses - they really are a healthier home.

Let’s Talk About Your Artisans Group Passive House

Are you interested in high Indoor Air Quality?  The data is real - the quality of air we breath has a profound effect on our health.

Are you interested in reducing your reliance on the grid?  Solar panels are expensive, and generating enough energy to run a standard home is incredibly expensive - but creating an energy efficient home is a much more simple and affordable solution.  You don’t have to have a wind or solar farm just to reduce your reliance on the grid, you can get most of the way to net-zero with a Passive House.  We’ll show you how.

Are you interested in sustainability?  If you’ve ever heard of embodied energy, it’s the measurement of the amount of energy that goes into producing a good or service.  In the case of a building, we talk about the amount of energy consumed in the creation of the building (from mining and processing materials, to transport and delivery).  Because a Passive House uses so much less energy, its long term strain on the environment is significantly reduced from a standard building.  Energy overconsumption is the number one issue of sustainability, and Passive House is the best available science for drastic energy savings in our built environment.

Let’s talk about what you want in a home or business, we can help.  

And happy Thanksgiving, everyone!