Meet the First Completed Passive House in NYC
WNYC has an in-depth profile of what went into making 174 Grand Street in Williamsburg the first completed building in the city constructed to energy-efficient Passive House standards. The apartment building has a seven-inch layer of foam insulation that designers from the firm Loadingdock5 determined was necessary by using “special software that starts with climate…

WNYC has an in-depth profile of what went into making 174 Grand Street in Williamsburg the first completed building in the city constructed to energy-efficient Passive House standards. The apartment building has a seven-inch layer of foam insulation that designers from the firm Loadingdock5 determined was necessary by using “special software that starts with climate data from New York City—the temperature highs and lows and humidity levels—[that let] them adjust the insulation and size of the heating unit until they hit the magic mark.” Heating costs for the upper duplex in the building are expected to only run a few hundred dollars for the entire winter due to the airtight technology. The article also quotes architect Ken Levinson as saying rgar Brooklyn has the highest number of Passive House buildings under construction in the entire U.S.; last month we took a look at a Brooklyn Heights brownstone that’s in the process of being renovated to Passive House standards.
A Trend-Setting Building With a Small Carbon Footprint [WNYC]
174 Grand [Loadingdock5]
Images from Loadingdock5.
There’s one in Brooklyn Heights? OMG!
I’ll call the neighbors to get the pitchforks and torches out.
The Brooklyn Heights brownstone linked in the post certainly blends in.
My other observation about this is that the house in question is hideously ugly. Yes, it’s in WIlliamsburg so it blends in and no one cares. But this human-storage thermos would not blend in most other brownstone nabes.
When this technology is more than 100 years old, Minard will approve of it.
There are about 25,000 Passive Houses worldwide, with 99.99% of them in Europe (mostly Germany and Austria).
Of those, a very large percentage are in and around Berlin.
Minard — Passivhaus BEGAN in Darmstadt, Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmstadt
Take a look at the climate figures on Wikipedia. Not exactly an extreme environment!
And, NO, most of these houses are not deep in the Alpen countryside of in Lapland. They are in the cities and suburbs.
“People who are afraid of opening a window and letting in regular air. It just isn’t about lowering your heating bills, there are many less extreme measures one can take to reach that goal.”
This house is in Williamsburg. With the amount of toxic junk and Parliament smoke wafting through the air, this is probably a good thing.
my understanding is that most of these passive houses are built in extreme-climate areas, such as one finds on mountains such as the the Alps and here in America, the Rockies. I am not aware of a passive house built in Vienna or Berlin although perhaps there are one or two. The idea behind the technology is extreme climate, although as I have said, it also appeals to people in temperate climates who don’t want any unfiltered outside air in their house. People who are afraid of opening a window and letting in regular air. It just isn’t about lowering your heating bills, there are many less extreme measures one can take to reach that goal.
Minard…. You think Berlin and Vienna are “extreme climate” locations?! Jeesh. Last time I checked most of Germany has a VERY SIMILAR climate to here in New York City.