Posted by Dave on December 5, 2009
Credit: Modcell
Avert the eyes. Yes, they are at it again. Brits hold no modicum of decency when it comes to their efforts at mating sustainable products with modern building methods. Hemp and straw are so pure and modest, while industry is so brutish and base. Will it ever work?
Modcell is attempting, in their Flying Factory, to create the illusive commercially viable, modular, super-insulated, high-performance, low energy ‘passive’ buildings built using renewable, locally sourced, carbon sequestering materials. I know, I know. Crazy. When will these money hungry, earth-lovers give up? WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on July 24, 2009
Salt Lake City is going passive. Joe and Rebecca are teaming up with Brach Design and Fisher Custom Building to build Utah’s first certified passive house. That is the plan anyway. Brach Design is Utah’s only certified Passive House architect and this will be his first passive house if everything turns out right.
You may be thinking, “Who gives a diddly ding dang do.” But let me tell all you Flanders swearing neigh-sayers, this is pretty ding dang diddly cool. Let’s not forget that 76% of all electricity produced by U.S. power plants goes to the building sector. Passive House started up as PassivHaus in the UK, but that was too stinking European sounding for God-Bless-’Em-Americans, so we changed it to Passive House Institute US, but it is the same thing. Passive House is a certification that literally beats the insulation off of rating systems like LEED. The graphic shows it pretty well (although LEED is not pictured because it is a bit like comparing apples to oranges). But the point is that Passive House is the stiffest energy efficiency standard the world has seen by far. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »