Build Your Home Ideas

With all of the engineering and design that goes into a house like this, why would window installation be any different? EVERYTHING in a passive house is modeled, examined, and optimized thermodynamically. For now we will be talking about the thermodynamic analysis of the Passive House Windows and how this translates to the positioning of the windows within the wall system. A typical new construction window comes with a nailing flange that is part of the frame of the window. This requires the window to be nailed directly to the wall, resulting in the window being flush with the outer edge of the exterior wall. Passive House windows don't come with the nailing flange, this allows flexibility in location of installation within the wall system. The fact is, in a thick wall (12 inches or more, further details on wall thickness will be addressed in a later post) you typically don't want to install the window on the outside of your wall. You want to install the window in the middle o...

Welcome to our Blog! I will be keeping you up to date during the construction of our Passive House in Rochester, NY. Right now we have a tentative break ground date of August 3rd 2015. There are still a few things up in the air, but if there are any changes I will let you know! My goal is to post at least once a week, with lots of pictures and diagrams of how this house is constructed, and you will see that it is not an ordinary house. It is also my goal to show that it is not prohibitively expensive either - actually that it is affordable. In all of my training cost has been the biggest question. Here are some things you will NOT see in this house:   Any Gas burning appliances : Bi-products of combustion are Carbon Dioxide, Water Vapor, and Carbon Monoxide. All of these are hazardous to your health, and Passive Houses know knows for their outstanding indoor air quality. Spray Foam Insulation : Don't get me wrong, spray foam is great, it certainly has it's place, but don'...

Passive House Window Operation is a little different, and takes a little getting use to.  As you can see in the above photo (view from the inside of the house), the window tilts to the inside, and opens inward. This has a few benefits. 1) When it is raining outside, you can still have the window open (in the tilt position). 2) Easier to clean - you don't need to hang out a 2nd story window to reach the outside 3) When the screen is placed on the outside, the elaborate triple locking mechanism - which ensures an airtight seal -  isn't interfered with 4) The standard american casement window crank is a HUGE thermal bridge, since almost the entire crank mechanism is not insulated very well The best sealed windows are the windows that have a latch the pulls the window into a seal - but I suppose there are downsides to all windows Casement The trouble with the Casement is screen placement when the handles are in the middle of the windows without the crank mechanism. Cleaning the ou...

The Anatomy of a Passive House Window The question I hear most often is - Can you open the windows? (Or even, can you have windows?) Of course you can. But I like to follow up with, why do you open your windows? The usual reply is to let in the fresh air. I have heard things like to let in the white noise, to hear the birds chirp etc. but usually it is to let in fresh air. What if the air in your house was always fresh? Remember we have a ventilation system that is running 24 hours a day bringing in the fresh air - and it is filtered, so there is no pollen, bugs, and dust from the outside getting in either. I'll get to the ventilation system in a later post, let just talk windows now. Windows are a very important part of the passive house design - in some cases more important than the wall. A passive house window, properly orientated and shaded will let in more solar energy in a year than it will let out. In a heating dominated climate that is HUGE!  So what is the big deal? Why ar...

Things are starting to move a little faster. I received a phone call today from the Mendon Building Department, that our Permit is ready to be picked up (and of course paid for). So as of tomorrow I will have a permit. Right now we have a tentative break ground date of August 3rd. We will be ordering our European windows soon, and have to close on our construction loan. So far everything is in line for the Passive House Certification. I am planing on almost daily posts to bring everyone up to date. I need to go into more detail on our window choice and comparison to standard american windows, our ventilation decision and design, our water heater choices and ductless mini split options. I also will go into a little bit more detail on thermal bridges and two dimensional heat transfer analysis - for all of the thermodynamics nerds out there.  There is a cascade of decisions that will need to be made very early because the windows and doors have such a long lead time (up to 15 weeks!)....