Passive House Comes to Brooklyn Heights
[nggallery id=”53667″ template=galleryview] We were invited to tour an in-construction Passive House in Brooklyn Heights, a 1846 brownstone on Sydney Place that was badly remodeled in the 80s and is now receiving a gut renovation to accommodate to the most rigorous energy standard in the world. For details on what a Passive House is, you…
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We were invited to tour an in-construction Passive House in Brooklyn Heights, a 1846 brownstone on Sydney Place that was badly remodeled in the 80s and is now receiving a gut renovation to accommodate to the most rigorous energy standard in the world. For details on what a Passive House is, you can visit this website or listen to this helpful NPR feature. We can tell you it is a house-wide energy system that uses an incredible amount of insulation and effective, insulated windows to create an airtight building. In this particular home, air source heat pumps bring fresh air into the house, filter the air, and then heat or cool the air which in turn heats or cools the house. (This is 80-90 percent more effective than a traditional heating or cooling system.) The contractor on the site, Sam McAfee, told us that the project is the first landmarked Passive House in the US, and the LPC has worked closely with them, especially with the windows. Through the winter, the home could maintaining 55 degrees without heat. Click through the photos to see how certain features in the home work in the system. Construction should be complete by this April.
“I have this high tech thing that helps heat and cool my house with out costing me a cent. It’s called a street tree.”
I just put in an order. Company said it’ll be ready around 2045.
IMBY – that’s awesome! We should make some more of those things!
I have this high tech thing that helps heat and cool my house with out costing me a cent. It’s called a street tree. In the summer it completely shades my front facade greatly reducing the need for AC and in the fall when the temperature starts to drop the leaves fall off like magic allowing the house to be bathed in the warmth of the sun all winter long…
I am so excited that there is a lively discussion of energy efficiency in brownstones! Energy recovery ventilators are excellent pieces of technology! Some are nearly 75% efficient at transferring heat between incoming and outgoing air! And the air that’s exhausted, why, it’s cleaner than the air that’s taken in, even after apocalyptic post-chili events! Imagine a whole city full of air cleaning houses! Now that’s environmentally positive architecture!
And passive house vs. LEED, now that’s a great comparison. One organization is composed of PhD’s and researchers aimed at setting standards for extremely low energy houses. The other is a consensus organization of manufacturers, industry representatives, and design and construction professionals which is aimed at “market transformation.” Hmmm. who do you trust to develop a better standard for energy efficiency?
Sooooo excited to see that people care about this.
Minard – thats perfectly reasonable.
Brownstones are difficult. I’m pretty sure the ‘fakey’ double hungs were a Landmark request (casements leak far less but don’t have that lovely shadow line).
You’re right – the Passive House standard is nothing to take lightly (its certainly not fluff, as someone posted earlier).
Buts its also not arbitrary. The heating/cooling loads of these homes are the level that (we hope), if we can start insulating our homes this way, can put us back into a sustainable Carbon Emission rate, so our carbon output and global warming stop snowballing exponentially, if you believe in that sort of thing.
Minard — Passivhaus is obviously not for everyone. But many of the elements may be used to make any renovation much more energy efficient. (Some elements do require an all-in approach… but not all.)
Sorry for the ‘vitriol’ but this uninformed jumping to conclusions makes me angry. Passivhaus is not a secret snake oil, it’s tried-and-true technological approach to heating and cooling. Folks that just say “X is BS” because they are CLUELESS about how something works.
The tides are caused by the moon?! That’s BS. They’re obviously caused by a huge sea monster moving about.
It’s like architectural Tea Party members… moved by gut feelings and not convinced by facts.
Those windows from Germany that look like double hung but are actually swing-in units must cost a fortune. I like the idea very much of making older houses more green and energy-efficient but this seems to take it to an extreme. I happen to like real double-hung windows and real fireplaces so this ain’t for me, not that I have the money to do this anyway.
“does anybody posting on this blog ever put up a difference of opinion about anything that doesn’t include a personal insult or is that required?”
mtr, by and large, it’s good-natured. Not everyone here certainly. But biting sarcasm is the tie that binds us here.