A Client Reflects On 14 Years In An Artisans Group Custom Home
We recently talked with Don Freas, an artist who lives in Olympia, Washington, about the Passive House home that Artisans Group designed for him back in 2000. While we talked, he sat in his office in the house we call The Jewel Box, looking out at a spectacular view of Puget Sound.
He told us he’s just as comfortable in his house today as he was when he first moved in. We wanted to know more. Here are excerpts of our conversation. Answers have been condensed for clarity.
Artisans Group: Tell us how this project got started. What is your house’s origin story?
Don Freas: I started seeing this property [online]. It had an old wreck of a house on it that nobody had lived in for a while. [I just kept coming back to it.] It was an old homestead with an old orchard with 50 fruit trees in it. There's a big blueberry patch. There’s an old redwood tree and a giant sequoia. So there's a section of forest and 190 feet of Puget Sound waterfront. And there’s just something about it that made me say, that would be the place to build a house.
At that point, [either] building or buying the property would have used up most of the money I could come up with. So I wasn't ready to do that. But then one of those awful fortunate situations happened…and I suddenly had enough to buy the property and build a house. I contacted a realtor and when we went to make an offer they had just dropped the price.
AG: Fortunes upon fortunes.
DF: Misfortunes upon fortunes, really. It was fascinating that it all just dropped into place. And something about it, I just knew it was the thing to do.
AG: Did you ask Artisan’s Group to build an energy-efficient house?
DF: At the time, I wasn't particularly concerned about building an energy-efficient home. I mean, I could see that we all would need to go that way at some point. But, as a furniture maker, I was more focused on arts and crafts. But I loved what Tessa was doing so I asked her: How about that? What would we do? I was happy to go along with what they were doing and that was Passive House.
AG: What was it like getting started with Tessa?
DF: [To get started] we came up with a set of rules. One of them was to remove as much detail as possible. I wanted a really simple design and lots of light. You know, this is an incredible site, probably one of the best sites in Thurston County for views of Puget Sound and the Olympics. So, of course, we wanted to pay attention to the view.
AG: What kind of house did you want?
DF: I needed a house and a studio. So [the design] became two buildings. I have a separate studio for woodworking and welding. It's about 800 square feet with a garage at ground level and a loading dock. That building is not Passive House, but it is well insulated and very similar in style to the house.
The house is one story [with one bedroom and an office]. I wanted most of the space in one big room — that would be the living room, kitchen, and dining room. And that has really worked out. It doesn't feel like such a small house.
AG: Why is that?
DF: This house is a light box. It has huge windows. And you would think, oh, that's a big heat leak, isn't it? But they’re triple-glazed windows.
I don't think you can understand what living with those is like until you do. There's three layers of glass and that inside layer of glass stays about room temperature. On the coldest day of the year, you can stand with your nose practically against one of those windows, and there's no draft. It's just warm. There's no cold air sheeting off of the glass, you know, which can happen even with double-glazed windows. And so it just feels like the house wants to stay the same temperature year-round inside. That's persisted, even though it was [built] 14 years ago.
AG: Tell me more about what it’s like to live there.
DF: Living in this house is pretty much indescribable — it’s hard to describe the comfort because it's subtle.
[The house has an earth tube that] preconditions all the air coming in to the temperature of the earth, which runs about 57 degrees, I guess. So it's pulling heat out of the air [in the ventilation system] on the hottest days and it's adding heat to the air on the coolest days.
It is fascinating. It is such an efficient house. Just two years ago I put in a mini-split, so now I'm heating the house with a heat pump and cooling it as well. And I thought that would probably raise my electric bill. But it didn’t. It’s about the same.
I'm trying to channel to you how much I love this house. It’s so comfortable, I could just be home. I don't even have to travel anymore because I live in this incredible place. Part of it is the location but part of it is that it's kind of like you’re wearing the house, you know? It just is always at a good temperature.
I think this technology is such an amazing shift in the way we think about living in a house. No drafts. No cold spots. It just really works.
AG: Do you have any advice for someone who’s thinking about building a Passive House?
DF: I knew [the Artisans Group team] pretty well, I trusted them and they worked well with me. [That’s important.]
One thing that I think is probably the most crucial is to pay close attention when you start making changes to that original plan. That’s when you should be getting a written estimate of what that change is going to do to the cost. A good contractor is probably doing that anyway.
I think another thing to do, and what I remember doing at the time, is to put aside a sum [that isn’t part of the original plan]. For me, it worked out. In fact, when the house was finished, I still had some of [those extra funds] left.
Posted on July 01, 2024
