Build Your Home Ideas

Video Compilation  I have compiled a list of video's I shot during the construction of Rochester Passive House. All of the Video's can be found by searching "Rochester Passive House" in Youtube Enjoy! One of the 1st Video's I took was during the window delivery. They are heavy! We unloaded the container with a skid stear and had to push them into an on site storage container. This group of 3 video's shows what we needed to do to raise the outer wall of our double wall assembly when the inner wall was already built This video shows the setup and plumbing of our drain water heat exchanger. This video shows the installation techniques of damp spray cellulose. This wall is an interior wall for sound deadening, but you can see the installation from both sides of the wall. This video shows the technique we used to complete the insulation of our attic when we cannot see the levels of insulation. We need to maintain at least 24" of blown cellulose in the attic.  ...

Open House! - UPDATE We will be collecting Hats and Gloves and any warm clothing for Homeless Veterans. Many of our contractors (and myself) that worked on our house are veterans. Since it is Veteran's Day Weekend it would be a great opportunity to thank those who won't be as warm this winter! Please bring something to donate for a wonderful cause.  Rochester’s 1 st  (to be) Certified Passive House 340 Quaker Meeting House Rd. in Honeoye Falls Friday November 11 1pm-6pm Saturday November 12 10am-6pm I will perform a Blower door test at 5pm on Saturday, bring your smoke sticks and IR Cameras! If you are thinking of building or renovating you won’t want to miss this! Come see 1st hand: Passive House Design Super Tight  Construction Heat Recovery Ventilation Super Insulation Passive House Windows We will be on hand to answer questions and give tours If you cannot make this Open House contact me at: MattB@airtightservicesinc.com to set up a time to come check it out!

We've Moved In! So, where do I begin. It has been so long since I posted anything... What have I learned from living in a (soon to be certified) Passive House? It is QUIET! We don't live in a noisy area, but when you close the door you can actually FEEL the quiet.  When something is sound proof, it keeps the outside sounds OUT, but also keeps the inside sounds IN. My 6 year old takes piano lesson. the piano is LOUD! The ventilation system works great! Smells don't linger at all. My biggest "complaint" with it is when the boost button it hit, you have NO indication it is running any faster. There is no light or sound to suggest it is on high - you just have to believe it.  We have had as many as 15 people in the house on a hot sunny day and didn't over heat the house. The box elder beetles are BAD this year. We don't have any in the the house - no air leaks means bug proof as well. We do get some fruit flies but I think they come in with our fruit Horse fly...

Passive House and Radon Let me 1st start by saying - I am not Certified in anything Radon. I don't know what goes into the analysis in the lab and I only followed the instructions on the package.  Here is what I do know: Radon is a radioactive soil gas that can cause cancer.  Radon is a "heavy" gas Molar weight of 222 g/mol vs 44 g/mol of CO2 The major sources of Radon in homes (mostly basements) can be attributed to: Open Foundation Block cores Dirt Floors Cracks in your foundation Open Sump Pump Crocks When your drain tile is not filled with water, it is filled with soil gas (ie Radon) Basically direct any connection between the soil and your home can lead to Radon in your home. Mendon, NY has been identified as an area with high Radon levels (39-51% of the homes have greater than 4 pCi/L). It was certainly a concern for me from the start. A passive house is suppose to be super tight, thermal bridge free, and properly ventilated, but if Radon seeps into the house it cou...

Product and Material Links Given the house is just about finished I thought it would be helpful for everyone if I gave out the links to all of the "special" materials we used in our house along with links to where they came from for more information. Hope this will help! Sub Slab Radon Barrier:  Reef Industries T90 Griffolyn - roughly $0.40 per sqft - shipping included http://www.reefindustries.com/assets/pdf/t90.pdf This product was used instead of 6 mil poly due to the high radon in our area and came in 1 sheet sized for our slab. Very happy with this product! Capillary Break: MasterSeal HLM 5000 https://www.master-builders-solutions.basf.us/en-us/products/masterseal/1991 This product was used off label as a capillary break. We ran into some questions of EPS foam melting with a liquid applied capillary break. We called technical assistance and they assured us it would work for our application. No complaints here ICF Blocks: AMVIC - 13" Blocks - 2.5" EPS / 8" ...

Thermal Image Scan This weekend we will be moving into the Rochester Passive House! As a family we are VERY excited! The moving van is rented and we will begin collecting our things from various locations in Rochester on Friday. Before we filled the house with tables, chairs, toys and boxes I thought it would be a good idea to do a thermal imaging scan of the house. On Wednesday we had a 95+ degree day, and I figured it was a great opportunity. The ventilation system was not running, The Master Bedroom heat pump was set at 73 degrees and the 1st floor one was on "Dehumidify".  A few notes on thermal imagine scans for those of you  not familiar with them: The scan only is measuring surface temperature - it is not an x-ray. So cold spots or hot spots may be due to other factors (foot prints, electronics, wet paint etc.) not related to heat gain. Objects with different emisivities (shininess) will show different temperatures. This has to do with its ability to reflect infrared r...

Superior Comfort is achieved Passively Passive House is just as much about comfort as it is about energy efficiency. But what is COMFORT? Passive Houses are ultra comfortable because: 1) They are ALWAYS Draft Free! 2) They are ALWAYS Quiet! 3) They are ALWAYS Let in Lots of Sun Light! 4) They are ALWAYS Warm! 5) They ALWAYS have Fresh Filtered Air! 6) Oh - they are ALWAYS Low Energy! So lets talk "Comfort" for a minute... While writing this post I did an internet search for images of "Comfort" and after seeing photo's of Mattresses, Bra's and Lasagna and having a good laugh and some internal comments about our society I decided I had to narrow down my search to "Home Comfort". There were 2 common themes: Fireplaces, coffee, blankets and snow out the windows Fireplaces are not exactly Passive House Comfort So this is a little closer White, bright, couches and smiles Now - guess the season... You never know in a Passive House! So, there is more to co...

Passive House Airtightness Achieved! We ran a few different tests today to validate our airtightness numbers: Our Field Measured Volume is  29356 CUFT We did a Window Blower Door Test with the Duct Blaster Here are photo's from our "Depressurization Test" 52 CFM50 - 0.106 ACH50 Here are photo's from our "Pressurization Test" 65 CFM50 - 0.133 ACH50 We also ordered the "D Ring" for the blower door to get an accurate Blower Door Number  I should note - the tolerance for the D-Ring is: 125 CFM - 30 CFM Here are photo's from our "Depressurization Test"   49 CFM50 - 0.100 ACH50 Here are photo's from our "Pressurization Test" 52 CFM50 - 0.106 ACH50 To average the results we are at 50.5 CFM50  A few notes from the tests: The blower door pressurization  test was done in the protected breezeway door vs the duct blaster pressurization test that was done on the open back yard.  We did a blower door pressure test up to 90 Pascals to ...