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North Carolina Boasts First Passive House

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From Jetson Green comes news of the first passive house in North Carolina, built by Chris Senior, a certified Passive House consultant who is the owner of Anchorage Building Corp, that has been “building green in North Carolina since 1993”.

Thick, well insulated walls are only the beginning for good passive house construction.

These are insulated to well beyond the requirements of any US building code.

The concrete slab is insulated to R20, the walls R42, and the rafters, R62.

The system will replace all of the indoor air every other hour while retaining about 96% of the interior temperature. The indoor air is kept fresh during the exchange with an UltimateAir energy recovery ventilator and a Fujitsu variable 0.25-1.0 ton 25-SEER mini-split on each floor.

The seal is completed with high-performance Krypton-filled windows by Serious Windows that have a low solar heat gain coefficient. Sounds barely make it in from outside.

The construction is typical otherwise.

The company is moving towards specializing in passive house construction and claims that it is able to keep costs to between $160 and $230 per square foot, which is no more expensive than typical US building costs.

Of course, a passive house costs much, much less to run over time, though, because it reduces the amount of energy needed to run it to a tiny fraction of what a typical US house takes to keep warm in winter and cool in summer.