DC's First Passive House Almost Complete

• May 31st 2012

by UrbanTurf Staff

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The Empowerhouse, considered to be the first passive house built in the District, is almost complete and ready for its first occupants.

The home was originally constructed on The National Mall by a team of students from Parsons The New School for Design during the Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathalon. After the event ended, work started on rebuilding and expanding the home at 4642 Gault Place NE (map) in Deanwood. With about three-quarters of the construction complete, it is hoped that what is now a two-family home will be ready for its new occupants by early fall.

Passive houses (born in Germany at the Passivhaus Institut) can look modern or traditional. Designers use off-the-shelf products to keep them as well-insulated and draft-free as possible, with insulation often a foot thick and far fewer holes than normal homes. The air-tight buildings are warmed by the sun (most plan for south-facing windows) and body heat during the winter, and use expandable awnings to cut down on sunlight in the summertime, cutting heating and cooling costs by 90 percent. While the homes still require energy for appliances, the drastically reduced HVAC costs make them more affordable than their fancy name might suggest.

The Empowerhouse will have a 4.2 kilowatt solar array that will provide all the power it needs. Because of our swampy weather, designers installed dehumidifiers and carefully managed the flow of air through the home. Compare to a typical Deanwood home, they project the home will result in $2,000 in annual energy cost savings.

Construction tours of the house will be offered this Saturday from 10:30am-1:00pm as part of U.N. World Environment Day, and green home workshops will be offered later in the afternoon at 4609 Gault Place NE. (To sign up, click here.) Developed with
 Habitat 
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 Humanity 
and
 the 
DC 
Department 
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and
 Community 
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 (DHCD),
 the
 project
 will
 join a traditional-looking home in Bethesda as one of the first passive homes in the DC area.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/dcs_first_passive_house_almost_complete/5601.