Passive Houses Aggressively Reduce Energy

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

Updated 2011-02-23 8:26 AM

By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

Heat your home by throwing a dinner party?

This concept may sound bizarre, but it's feasible in cutting-edge green homes that are so well-insulated, they don't need a furnace or boiler. They'll stay warm simply with body heat. A hairdryer might also suffice.

"It's like living in a glass thermos," says John Eckfeldt, a physician who built one of these "passive" homes in frigid Isabella, Minn. He says the inside temperature is so even that if he sees snow falling, he's surprised to realize it must be cold outside.

The windows never feel cold, nor do the concrete floors, even though they don't have in-floor heating, says Joe Turner of his "passive" home in Salt Lake City. "The house is also super quiet."

The passive house movement, popularized in Europe, where thousands of such homes have been built, is starting to catch on in the United States as consumers look to lower their utility bills. These homes don't require pricey solar panels or wind turbines but focus on old-fashioned building science to reduce energy use by up to 90% less energy.

Courtesy of Nancy Schultz

They're different from the "passive solar" homes of the 1970s, which used a lot of south-facing windows for heating, because they emphasize other features: thick walls and roofs (often at least a foot) and triple-paned windows, as well as efficient appliances and lighting. The secret is tightness, achieved via superior insulation and air sealing. A mechanical system brings in fresh air, heating or cooling it as needed.

Few U.S. homes, only a dozen so far, have obtained certification from the Passive House Institute US, a private Illinois-based group that bases its rules on the German Passivhaus standard.

Yet, dozens of homes nationwide are now being designed to meet its strict energy efficiency requirements.

"It's growing exponentially," says Tom DiGiovanni, who heads the Passive House Alliance, a group established last year to promote the standard. He says more than 400 people are now trained as passive house consultants, up from 20 two years ago.

"It feels like we're almost at a tipping point," he says, citing factors such as high energy prices and the Obama administration's push for energy efficiency. "It's like the perfect storm."

Proponents say the passive standard's prime tenets — insulation and air sealing — can also be used by owners of existing homes to boost energy efficiency.

"It holds great promise for this country," says Alex Wilson, executive editor of Environmental Building News. He says the needed materials, especially windows, are becoming more affordable, and building codes are demanding greater efficiency.

"It could be mainstream five years from now," says Nate Kredich of the private U.S. Green Building Council, which has its own green rating system. He says its popularity may depend on whether production builders jump on board and prices fall.

How much more?

Passive homes cost 6% to 12% more than other new homes, but they recoup that premium in lower utility bills in seven to 12 years, DiGiovanni says.

"The biggest extra cost is the windows," he says, noting that U.S. companies have only recently begun making triple-pane windows, so some builders had to import them. California-based Serious Materials makes ultra-efficient dual-pane windows that several U.S. passive homes have used.

Still, he says passive homes can be built on a budget, especially in multi-unit buildings. He says several affordable housing projects, including a 48-unit site in Urbana, Ill., are underway.

"It's innately reasonable," says architect David Peabody, who designed the first passive house in the Washington, D.C., area. He says the extra cost was about 8%, but the annual utility bills for the 4,200-square-foot home are projected at less than $750. U.S. households spent an average of $2,639 on energy costs for homes that size in 2005, the most recent year for which U.S. government data are available.

In Lafayette, La., architecture professor Corey Saft estimates his solar-equipped passive home cost about 10% more than a regular new home. He built it for $110 per square foot, which he says is inexpensive for a custom home. Census Bureau data indicate new homes in the South — many by production builders — sold for an average of $76.77 per square foot in 2009.

"It's the most cost-effective way of accomplishing the least energy use," says architect Dennis Wedlick, who designed New York state's first passive house. He says there was no premium for his Hudson Valley project, because he used Serious' U.S.-made windows and offset the cost of extra insulation by using a tiny, inexpensive ductless heating and air conditioning system.

Yet, Wedlick sees potential obstacles. "It could take a long time to get certified," he says, adding the program is being thoroughly developed but still lacks the staff to handle the booming demand.

Certification can cost several thousand dollars. The Institute charges about $1,000 to review an application for a 2,000-square-foot home, but that doesn't include the cost of hiring a consultant to advise on design and an independent auditor to verify the home's efficiency.

Looks count, too

Another challenge could be aesthetics. Most U.S. passive homes have limited windows and a boxy shape, which is the easiest geometry to keep insulated and highly energy efficient.

Homes with curves and larger footprints require extra insulation and sealing that add to the cost. Eckfeldt says his stylish passive home, with huge curved windows and upscale finishes, cost $450 per square foot.

Just how tough is the standard? John Semmelhack, a passive house consultant in Charlottesville, Va., reviewed one home designed to earn the top rating from the U.S. Green Building Council and determined it wouldn't qualify as a passive house for several reasons: It has too many windows; the windows don't absorb enough solar heat; and the L-shaped, courtyard house isn't a simple cube.

"The hardest type of house to meet the passive standard is a small detached single-family home," says Semmelhack, adding it's easier to meet it with larger commercial spaces, schools or — as is commonly the case in Germany — apartment buildings. He advised on how to get a school in Charlottesville certified; two other U.S. schools have already passed the test.

Climate could also be a challenge for the passive standard.

"It favors a (temperate) climate like Germany's," says Kevin Morrow of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). He says U.S. weather is much more diverse — some tropical, some Arctic and some a mixture of both.

Exacting requirements

Regardless of location, passive homes cannot have a heating or cooling load above 4,755 British thermal units per square foot, which is about one-tenth that of homes built to current U.S. codes. They must also be virtually airtight, which requires meticulous sealing of ducts, joints and hairline cracks.

"You can't greenwash this. You have to be a terrific builder to do this," Wedlick says.

To avoid overheating in warm areas, passive homes need exterior shading, ventilation and a cooling system, says German-born architect Katrin Klingenberg. She built her own home in Urbana to the Passivhaus standard in 2002 and opened the U.S. institute in 2008.

"It's basic building science, but it's taken to a high level," says Morrow, adding that NAHB may incorporate passive home rules into its own green building standard.

Kredich says the U.S. Green Building Council may do the same.

Unlike those programs, which also rate homes for water conservation, renewable building materials and other aspects of green building, the passive standard looks only at energy efficiency.

The U.S. Department of Energy did some of the original research on it decades ago, but with energy prices lower in the U.S. than Europe, the standard didn't take off until German physicist Wolfgang Feist founded the Passivhaus Institute in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1996.

One of the standard's benefits is that it makes it relatively easy for homes to become net zero energy, which means they produce as much power as they use, says David Johnston, author of Toward a Zero Energy Home. Because passive homes don't use much energy, he says, a small solar energy system will often be enough to meet their needs.

Saft made his passive home net-zero by adding a three-kilowatt solar array.

So did Eckfeldt and his wife, architect Nancy Schultz, who designed their Isabella home, using photovoltaics to offset their energy needs.

Yet, they can survive even the worst of winter without any help from the sun or backup heating. In December 2009, their house's boiler didn't work for 10 cloudy days when they were out of town and outside temperatures dipped well below zero.

How cold did it get inside? The thermostat held at 51 degrees.

Find Passive House certified windows and other eco-friendly products at World Class Supply

Building Performance and Innovation

Category Archives: better performance

The Red Igloo vs. The Autopoiesis of Architecture

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Graham McKay

This post is a mashup of my 2010 architecture fable The Red Igloo, and thoughts from Patrik Schumacher’s The Autopoiesis of Architecture.
Both purport to convey some kind of truth about architecture.

* * *

Once upon a time all Inuit people made igloos the same way.

Vernacular building relies on tradition, on well proven solutions taken for granted. The status quo does not require theory. vol.1 p35

They made them out of snow because snow didn’t cost anything, it was there, they had a lot of it, and there would always be more tomorrow. They made blocks out of snow and laid them one by one in a spiral that became smaller and smaller until it made a dome. They made a little entrance to keep the wind out. It always faced away from the wind. And they made a little hole in the wall to let the light in. It always faced the sun. It was as perfect as it could be. For a very long time, everyone made their igloos like this.    

The sole responsibility of the avant-garde architect is to mutate [to create mutations] and give innovation a chance. vol.1 p134

Every now and then there was a small change that made igloos even better. Putting a piece of plastic over the hole let the light in and kept the wind out better than a sealskin curtain. But mostly, igloos remained much the same. Nobody could really make them that much better.

Could [innovation] not be done by trial and error? Perhaps, trial and error is always involved. However, construction takes too long, and the material investment is too big to allow for an effective trial and error process unless the process is slowed down to the tempo of tradition by varying and improving in very small steps.

Inuit people still tell stories of a man called Biisaiyowaq. He is famous. He is part of the history of igloos. This is what happened. One day, when Biisaiyowaq was out hunting, he came across a dead polar bear. He took two bowls of its blood, mixed it with about a cubic metre of snow, and used it to make a red igloo for himself.

Architecture is a discourse that is geared to permanent innovation, keeping up with and promoting a dynamic society. The societal need for a permanently updated building environment – inevitable in a society that expands and transforms relatively rapidly – is first the evolutionary attractor for architecture’s crystallisation and then the selector for its further innovation.

A short time after, people came to look at what Biisaiyowaq had done. They all looked at his red igloo and thought the same thing. The first person to say it out loud was a child. The child said, “It’s red! Everything else is white. It’s DIFFERENT!”

The avant-garde work is primarily addressed to an expert audience of other architects, with only a minimal and indirect engagement with a larger, non-expert audience. vol.1 p99

Everyone was quiet for a while.  Then one of the adults suddenly said, “It’s NEW!” Almost at the same time, another said, “It’s MODERN!” Another shouted, “It’s BEAUTIFUL!” People were now all saying things at the same time. “You’re a GENIUS!” “It’s so ORIGINAL!” “You’re so CREATIVE!”

One man holding a pencil and paper said, “IT IS A TRULY BOLD AND ORIGINAL ARTISTIC STATEMENT!”

Accountability exists primarily with respect to the internal avant-garde expert audience that largely controls the system of architectural reputations. vol.1 p99

One old woman said, “I remember a story my grandmother once told me about a red igloo. You have brought this story alive, made it real for me. “It RECONNECTS US with our history!” Another person said, “People, we all know it’s not all white out there. There’s polar bear blood, whale blood, walrus blood and seal blood everywhere. Red is WHO WE ARE! Red is HOW WE LIVE!” While everyone was thinking this over, someone at the back said, “I don’t like it.” Another said, “Me neither. That IS NOT an igloo!” 

This evaluation of the mainstream in terms of … a compromise of tectonic/aesthetic principles misses the point – the raison d’être of the division of labour within the profession. vol. 1 p134

The man with the pencil and paper said, “Don’t you see? This red igloo opens up A NEW WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES for igloos! IT REDEFINES IGLOOS FOR OUR TIMES! IT MAKES US THINK AGAIN ABOUT WHAT AN IGLOO IS.”

The very act of publication implies the claim that the presented work is worthy of attention. … Published architecture always implies an ambition to act in the name of architecture, and always claims the mantle of contributing to the innovation of architecture. vol.1 p107

Bisaiyowaq went inside his igloo and sat down. He remembered how much EASIER it had been to shape the snow when it had polar bear blood mixed in. It had saved him a lot of time. He thought about all the time everyone else could save. They could spend that time hunting for more food, or inside their igloos eating ice cream and sharing stories with their friends and families. He remembered how much STRONGER the red snow had been. He hadn’t needed to use as much of the pure white snow. He had been able to leave more of it where it was, looking pretty. He remembered how polar bears stayed away from his red igloo and how much SAFER he felt because of that. He thought about how much safer everyone else could be too. He remembered how the red snow made the inside of the igloo WARMER. He didn’t know why, but he knew he didn’t have to use as much whale oil to keep it warm. He thought about all the whale oil the others would save. He thought about all the whales that would not have to be killed.

Experimentation requires a certain distancing from immediate performative pressures and the demand of best practice delivery. vol.1 p135

He remembered all these things but, most of all, he remembered how simple it had been. All he had to do was tell everyone to mix two bowls of polar bear blood into about a cubic metre of snow. He stood up and went outside.

There was a big crowd now. They all rushed towards Biisaiyowaq. “I want a red igloo!” “I want one too!” “We all want one!” “Please show us how to make them!”

They stopped talking when they saw Biisaiyowaq was about to speak. Biisaiyowaq said, “I’m sorry, I can’t teach you. This is something only I can do. You have to know how to choose the right polar bear and kill it in a certain way and at a certain time. I can’t explain how I know this, but I do. It’s an art. Trust me.”

The client’s immediate interests are served only inasmuch as they coincide with the new, generalizable interests of contemporary civilisation that the avant-garde exploration tries to address. vol.1 p134

Everyone was disappointed. One big person suddenly shouted, “It doesn’t matter! I’ll pay you to make a red igloo for me.” Another, bigger one, said, “I will pay you more!”

The man with the pencil and paper (who was actually bigger than them all) said, “Once I tell everyone else, you will be FAMOUS. You will never have to hunt again!” And he rushed off to tell everyone else.

Accountability exists primarily with respect to the internal avant-garde expert audience that largely controls the system of architectural reputations. vol.1 p99

And so it came to be that, apart from killing the occasional seal for blood to make his red igloos, Biisaiyowaq never had to hunt again. 

Success in the market and the new responsibilities that come with it sometimes prevent avant-gardist challenges from being taken up once more. vol.1 p104

Thus the theory of architectural autopoiesis identifies the innovation of the built environment of society as a defining aspect of architecture’s societal function. vol.1 p99

Find materials for your Red Igloo here (no animals are hurt in these materials)

Triple Threat Windows

residential architect magazine:

Excerpt from the:

Triple Threat

highly insulating windows are effective, but are they worth the price?

By:nigel f. maynard 

  

Traditionally, windows have been the weakest energy efficiency link in a building envelope, and early single-pane openings were the most egregious offenders. According to www.efficientwindows.org, single-glazed windows with clear glass allow “the highest transfer of energy (i.e., heat loss or heat gain depending on local climate conditions) while permitting the highest daylight transmission.” No wonder such windows are practically extinct in residential architecture.

The standard today is a double-glazed low-E window with insulation between the panes. A vast improvement over a single pane, insulated windows are better at preventing heat loss and heat gain, keeping the internal temperature of a house relatively stable. Depending on your region of the country, such a window—if it’s Energy Star rated—has a U-factor (the rate of heat transfer and an indication of how well the window insulates) of 0.30 to 0.60 and a solar heat gain coefficient (which indicates how well the window blocks heat caused by sunlight) of 0.27 to 0.40. Still, the best double-pane window is inadequate compared to the exterior wall.

In recent years, a new breed of windows—the so-called ultra high-efficiency products—has been gaining traction and things have gotten quite interesting. The windows are usually twice as efficient as double-pane units and some narrow the performance gap between the opening and the wall on which they’re installed.

Energy Star–rated windows typically hold an R-value of 3. By increasing the R-value from 3 to 5, average heat loss through the window is reduced by 30 percent to 40 percent. Designed for new construction and replacement projects, the windows can achieve a U-factor as low as 0.15.

R-5 windows are the lowest-performing product that Intus Windows offers. Managing director Aurimas Sabulis says the problem with most window companies is that their products aren’t versatile enough to be effective throughout the United States. Intus, he says, specializes in high-performance windows that cater to any region of the country. “One solution does not fit all,” he notes. “The U.S. has seven different climate zones.”

Intus, a Lithuania-based manufacturer that recently set up a U.S. division in Washington, D.C., offers all-wood and aluminum-clad wood windows with R-values up to about 10. The company also manufactures Passive House–certified products, which is why students from Parsons The New School for Design; the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at The New School; and the Stevens Institute of Technology selected the windows for their Empowerhouse project, an entry in the 2011 Solar Decathlon.

“The Intus windows give us an overall annual energy gain,” says Laura Briggs, faculty lead and chairwoman of sustainable architecture at Parsons. “Our team carefully analyzed the size and placement of the windows in order to take full advantage of solar gain and daylighting to improve comfort and meet Passive House standards.” Briggs adds that the right sizing of the windows also was an economic choice. “The Intus windows are beautiful wood frames that are meticulously designed, specifically to reduce thermal bridging by having few conductive breaks in the frame,” she explains. “They prevent air infiltration due to the fully gasketed sashes and the triple panel gives us the U-values we wanted to attain.”

The DOE states that there is no specific definition for “highly insulating” windows, but the agency says the term usually refers to windows with a U-factor of around 0.2 or less for fixed units (venting units must meet 0.22). “Typically these are triple-pane windows with advanced features such as gas fills, suspended films, advanced spacers, and low-E coatings,” according to the DOE. “A U-factor measures a window’s insulating abilities; the lower the U-factor, the less heat loss through the window.” The windows’ good U-value ratings make them ideal for cold climates when you want better insulation and resistance to heat flow, but some architects also use the products in warm climates.

Architect Eric Lewis, AIA, LEED AP, used the windows on a Baltimore row house when he wanted to maintain views with large glass openings and high performance. “Because of the orientation of [the north side of the home], we used triple-insulated windows so we would still get our R-value and plenty of views and openness,” says Lewis, a senior associate at Alexander Design Studio in Ellicott City, Md.

 Intus Windows’ Sabulis says  “We have figured out how to do triple-pane windows for the lowest possible cost,” he says. Without giving away any secrets, Intus claims it offers products at 20 percent to 30 percent less than other manufacturers, which means a typical 4-foot-by-2-foot window will cost roughly $300 to $400.

The DOE launched the High Performance Windows Volume Purchase Program. “The goal of the program is to expand the market for highly insulating windows and low-E storm windows by reducing market barriers and offering windows products at attractive prices, thus making highly insulating windows more affordable,” the agency says.

World Class Supply carries Intus super performance windows, doors and curtain walls

How to Apply American Clay

Clay is a fantastic coating for walls.  Clay paints give a look and feel unlike anything else.  This video gives a variety of options on application of American Clay that suits every style and level of skill. 

You Tube video for American Clay Application

American Clay is available at World Class Supply

Affordable Green Homes Everywhere

Green homes are everywhere and their growth is booming. Wouldn’t anyone want to cut their energy bills to the bone? Green homes are starting to overcome the common myths that they’re expensive to build, ineffective “where I live” and just plain ugly. Green homes are now becoming popular as they are able to conceal the technology that drives them until it is needed. Green homes are clearly able to compete across markets and demographics.

Video on Green Affordable Housing

http://www.greenaffordablehousing.org/

© 2013 Green Affordable Housing In North America

Find green building materials at World Class Supply

Amory Lovins, 50 Year Energy Authority

Amory B. Lovins, a 65-year-old American consultant, experimental physicist and 1993 MacArthur Fellow, has been active at the nexus of energy, resources, environment, development, and security in more than 50 countries for 35 years, including 14 years based in England. He is widely considered among the world’s leading authorities on energy—especially its efficient use and sustainable supply—and a fertile innovator in integrative design.

After two years at Harvard, Mr. Lovins transferred to Oxford, and two years later became a don at 21, receiving in consequence an Oxford MA by Special Resolution (1971) and, later, 11 honorary doctorates of various U.S. and U.K. universities. He has been Regents’ Lecturer at the U. of California both in Energy and Resources and in Economics; Grauer Lecturer at UBC; Luce Visiting Professor at Dartmouth; Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Colorado; Oikos Visiting Professor of Business, U. of St. Gallen; an engineering visiting professor at Peking U.; and 2007 MAP/Ming Professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering.

During 1979–2002, Mr. Lovins worked as a team with Hunter Lovins (his wife 1979–99). They shared a 1982 Mitchell Prize, a 1983 Right Livelihood Award (often called the “alternative Nobel Prize”), the 1999 Lindbergh Award, and Time’s 2000 Heroes for the Planet Award. In 1989 he won the Onassis Foundation’s first Delphi Prize, one of the world’s top environmental awards, for their “essential contribution towards finding alternative solutions to energy problems.” That contribution included the “end-use / least-cost” redefinition of the energy problem (in Foreign Affairs in 1976)—asking what quantity, quality, scale, and source of energy will do each task in the cheapest way. This economically based approach first permitted successful foresight in the competitive energy-service marketplace.

In 1993 he received the Nissan Prize for inventing superefficient ultralight-hybrid cars, to which ~$10 billion had been committed by 2000, and in 1999, partly for that work, the World Technology Award (Environment). He also received the 1997 Heinz Award, the 2000 Happold Medal of the [UK] Construction Industry Council, the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Medal of the [UK] Royal Society of Arts (Life Fellow), and in 2007, the Blue Planet Prize, Volvo Prize, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, Foreign Membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, Time International’s Hero of the Environment award, Popular Mechanics’ Breakthrough Leadership award, and honorary Senior Fellowship of the Design Futures Council. In 2008 he was named one of America’s 24 Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report and Harvard’s Kennedy School, and received the first Aspen Institute / National Geographic Energy and Environment Award for Individual Thought Leadership. In 2009, he received the National Design Award (Design Mind), Time named him among the world’s 100 most influential people, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers. In 2010, he was Runner-Up for the Zayed Future Energy Prize.

In 1982, the Lovinses cofounded Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit think-and-do tank. RMI’s ~80 staff drive the efficient and restorative use of resources to help create a world thriving, verdant, and secure, for all, for ever. Ms. Lovins left RMI in 2002; Mr. Lovins is now RMI's Chairman and Chief Scientist. The Institute’s ~$13-million annual revenue comes from programmatic enterprise, chiefly private-sector consultancy, and from grants and donations. RMI’s balance sheet comes largely from Mr. Lovins’s having cofounded, led, spun off, and in 1999 sold (to the Financial Times group), E Source, the premier source of information on advanced electric efficiency.

Mr. Lovins led the energy design for his home (and RMI’s original headquarters), whose ~99% savings in space- and water-heating energy (to –44°C or –47°F) and ~90% in home electricity paid back in ten months with 1983 technology. An $18-million utility experiment he cofounded and -steered in the 1990s, PG&E’s “ACT²,” validated his claim that very large energy savings could cost less than small or no savings, e.g. in houses comfortable with no air conditioner at up to +46ºC (+115°F) yet costing less to build. He founded and until 2007 chaired RMI’s fourth spinoff, the advanced-composites technology developer Fiberforge Corporation, and is RMI’s lead practitioner—lately helping redesign >$30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors—in implementing for major firms the tenets of natural capitalism, which shared the 2001 Shingo Prize (Research), the “Nobel Prize for Manufacturing.” In 2004, he led a Pentagon-cosponsored synthesis of how to eliminate U.S. oil use, led by business for profit, and in 2007, became the first member of the Transformation Advisory Council for the Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company. His other senior advisory relationships have lately served the leaders of Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Holcim, Interface, and Wal-Mart and of several startup firms.

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress; and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

Mr. Lovins has briefed 21 heads of state, given expert testimony in eight countries and 20+ states, delivered thousands of lectures, and written 31 books and more than 450 papers, as well as poetry, landscape photography, music (he was a pianist and composer), and an electronics patent. In 1980–81 he served on the U.S. Department of Energy’s senior advisory board, and in 1999–2001 and 2006–08, on Defense Science Board task forces on military energy strategy. In 1984 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for his book Soft Energy Paths and many other noteworthy contributions to energy policy,” in 1988, of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2001, of the World Business Academy. Dr. Alvin Weinberg, former Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, called him “surely the most articulate writer on energy in the whole world today; "Newsweek, "one of the Western world’s most influential energy thinkers.” Dr. John Ahearne, then Vice President of Resources for the Future, remarked that “Amory Lovins has done more to assemble and advance understanding of [energy] efficiency opportunities than any other single person.” The Centennial Issue of The Wall Street Journal named him among 39 people in the world most likely to change the course of business in the 1990s; Car called him the 22nd most powerful person in the global car industry; and The Economist wrote in 2008 that “history has proved him right.”

An occasional advisor to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mr. Lovins has addressed hundreds of fora sponsored by such groups as The Engineering Foundation, Association of Energy Engineers, ASHRAE, Society of Automotive Engineers, Royal Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, American Physical Society, International Association for Energy Economics, Montreux Energy Forum, Institution of Electrical Engineers, McKinsey, Accenture, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan, Allen & Co., News Corporation, Fortune, Forbes, Time, ULI, IDRC, CoreNet, AIA, API, AAPG, AGA, EEI, EPRI, CRIEPI, Hoover and Brookings Institutions, CSIS, Chatham House, Council on Foreign Relations, Pacific Council, Commonwealth Club, Keidanren, Conference Board, World Economic Forum, Tällberg Conference, TED, FiRE, eg, World Bank, GBN, Highlands Forum, NPS, NWC, NDU, DAU, Aspen Design Conference, Royal Society, and Royal Society of Arts. He collaborates on landscape photography and orangutan conservation with his wife, fine-art landscape photographer Judy Hill Lovins (www.judyhill.com).

World Class Supply carries eco-friendly building and lawn products!

Why You'll Love Thermally Modified Wood 

DesignNY Magazine

January 16

Written by Karen Marley

Thermally modified wood (TMW) is gaining traction in the U.S. as an intelligent new building material. Kevin DeMars of Attica Millworks, Inc., one of only a few U.S. TMW specialists, answers some questions on this ingenious product.   

Q.  What is thermally modified wood?

A. It’s wood that undergoes a precise application of heat and steam that changes the
wood’s cellular structure. No chemicals are involved. Consequently, the wood
becomes more stable and durable. It won’t grow mold.       

Q.  Why was the technology developed?

A.   The process has been in Europe since the Vikings but the 1990’s launched its
development as a science-based commercial technology due to the sauna
industry. Saunas generate heat and humidity. These are disastrous when
combined with wood.   

TMW provides all of wood’s attractive qualities without the problems of rot and
buckling. The thermal process gives wood those coveted dark, rich tones ...  naturally.
No chemical stains are needed.  

Q.  Where does the best TMW come from?

A.   In the U.S. the best TMW comes from wood that’s grown and processed domestically,
then shipped to Europe for the thermal modification. There are several
domestic manufacturers but they lack the European experience. This is critical
because if the process isn’t done correctly, you lose the benefits. However, the U.S. is learning quickly. 

Q.  What species can be thermally modified?

A.   Any species! Actually, some take it better than others. We prefer ash but have mastered others such as red oak, hickory, poplar, maple, spruce, and pine.

Q.  Since TMW looks and acts like tropical woods, is there a benefit to TMW over exotics?

A.  Definitely. Thermally modified ash will look and act like ebony, ipe, or wenge. None
of these exotics are sustainably harvested, despite their marketing. Meanwhile,
the U.S. has the best forest management in the world. 

Q.  Why is TMW a smart building material?

A.   Unlike other hardwoods, TMW will work anywhere – kitchens, basements, decking,
bathrooms – even radiant heated floors. There is no twisting, cupping, or gapping. With over a billion dollars in moisture damage to wood each year, imagine the savings with TMW! Consumers enjoy a 15-25 percent savings over traditional hardwoods so now being responsible to the environment actually saves money. 

Thermally Modified Wood is available at World Class Supply 

INTERVIEW: Building Science Pioneer Dr. Joe Lstiburek on the Good, Bad and Ugly Side of Buildings

Posted By Andrew Michler On March 11, 2013 @ 12:05 am In Architecture,Interviews,Sustainable Building 

The term ‘building science’ is used quite often now in sustainable building circles, but much of what we understand of it can be traced back to the work of Dr. Joe Lstiburek ^[4], founder ofBuilding Science Corporation ^[5]. He is anything but your typical engineer ^[6] or scientist who spends time crunching numbers or hiding away in a lab. Lstiburek has spent most of his career out in the field, testing and examining what works and what doesn’t. Many of the building standards today — from building codes to ASHRE to testing methodology — have his finger prints all over them, and his tough love criticism of building design is undercut with his wry humor and, of course, an encyclopedic knowledge of building construction. Read on to learn where buildings go wrong and what we can do about it.

Inhabitat: What does building science really mean? Did it not exist 50 years ago?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, it always existed. It’s really the technical side of architecture ^[7] that architects gave up. If architects did their job there wouldn’t be any need for building science. You know, I’m flabbergasted by the architectural profession giving up control of such a profitable part of the industry, which is the interaction of the building enclosure with the climate and the people and the mechanical system.

You know, this occurred because of the change in the focus on the education of the architects, the school. They’re focused – they’re trained in art. They’re not trained in physics and material science to actually execute their designs.

Back in the day, 100 years ago, or maybe 50 years ago in Europe, architects were trained like master builders. They understood structure. They understood mechanical. They understood physics. They understood material science. They understood how everything worked together. The focus now on the architectural education is all art and what’s missing are all of those other pieces — one of those missing pieces is building science or building physics.

Inhabitat: Do they feel like it’s not their problem? Such as how a building envelope will necessarily function in the real world — that if it’s down on paper and it’s been done before, then that’s okay?

Joe Lstiburek: I can’t speak for the architectural community, although I often try to – that is I think the arrogance of the profession drives me crazy. I think they feel it’s beneath their dignity to worry about these little, minor problems, like how to keep the rain out of the building, how to keep the air in and the air out. Let somebody else worry about that. I’m here to make an uplifting building to society to basically send a message about how this building is going to make this place a better place to live, and the people that live and work in it are better people. That’s what my mission is. This other stuff somebody else will worry about.

Inhabitat: So how do you get them excited about building science again?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, I don’t. What happens is the legal profession does that for us. The most effective technology transfer in the world is a lawsuit. They never call us when things are going well. They call us, “Oh, my God! We’re getting our ass sued because this problem occurred.” 

Inhabitat: One of my favorite things you  talk about is how highrises eighty years ago were more energy efficient than just about anything built today, especially with curtain walls and glass.

Joe Lstiburek: Well, it’s real easy. It’s just glass. I mean we have glass boxes and glass and steel are inefficient. Back in the day we had glazing ratios that were 10 and 15 percent and mass walls. An R2 curtain wall can’t compare to an R8 mass wall assembly. It’s not even close.

Inhabitat: So we talk about these advanced materials, advanced glazing options we have now and, you know, they go on and on and on. They are still nothing compared to a masonry wall as far as energy efficiency?

Joe Lstiburek: They’re nothing to the old approaches, but in the last 50 years the architectural profession has managed to piss away every energy advance that the rest of us have made because of all of the glass. I mean it’s just amazing to me.

And the hypocrisy is stunning. They blame everything. We’re here to save the planet. We’re here because it’s real important for our carbon footprint. And yet they turn out one glass box after another glass box after another glass box and they’re interested in what the emission rate of the paint is, and what the embodied energy of the carpet is, and the biggest problem is their original design. That just drives me crazy. LEED ^[8] is a colossal joke for that reason. They equate a bike rack with the same efficiency as the enclosure.

Inhabitat: Everybody who wants to point LEED’s weakness uses the bike rack argument.

Joe Lstiburek: Guess what? For good reason. And you know what? They’re idiots to do that and they refuse to limit glazing ratios and they don’t measure s***.

Inhabitat: And there’s no commissioning of the envelope.

Joe Lstiburek: No. It’s crazy, and you know what? We’ve been collecting the numbers and they’re pathetic. What’s great is that, okay, now they’re going to fix it, nothing like taking a really flawed and screwed up program and having to fix it.

Well, the lawsuit that Gifford started ^[9] gave them a wake-up call. The fact that people are now publishing the results and they’re pretty poor has given a wake-up call. At the end of the day, LEED is going to get fixed because they have no choice. It’s just that we’ve wasted a decade.

Inhabitat: It wasn’t just that lawsuit. You really started harping on how weak the LEED energy and atmosphere credits were in 2008.

Joe Lstiburek: I couldn’t understand why a licensed engineer or a licensed architect would have an outside bunch with a checklist supplement their professional knowledge and experience. I mean how insulting is that? Because that tells me that you are so poor as a professional that you believe that the judgment of a third-party checklist is more significant than your knowledge.

And experience as an architect or engineer. Are you kidding me? I mean I would have thrown them out of my office. I would have said, “What? Get the hell out of here.”

You go and you do this checklist thing and you’re telling me that I have to superimpose this arbitrarian, capricious checklist on my skill as an architect, as an engineer. I mean that, to me, is flabbergasting.

Inhabitat: So is it the same effect of when architects gave up the idea of building science and said somebody else can worry about it. The LEED checklist gave the architects the opportunity for somebody else to worry about what green building really is?

Joe Lstiburek: The architects have caused their own problem and only the architects can solve their own problem and I have faith that the architectural profession will fix itself. Architects need to get in charge of the process again, totally in charge of the process, and for that they need the education and the experience to do that.

There should be no reason that we have all of these outside consultants that are sucking bits of the architectural key out of the process. The architects should grab that for themselves and deliver the whole building the right way, to be the boss of the job, to be the master builders again. I mean my daughter is an architect and I keep telling them, “Your generation has to fix this. You guys need to be in charge again.”

Inhabitat: We talked about the curtain wall or glass being a key concern of energy efficiency in buildings. What else is a major issue right now?

Joe Lstiburek: In my view, over-ventilation.

Inhabitat: Is that ASHRAE’s fault or just people are doing above and beyond?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, ASHRAE is dominated by a vested interest in politics and LEED is even worse, if you can imagine that. I mean could you imagine getting a LEED point for increasing the ventilation 30 percent above ASHRAE and ASHRAE’s is already out of control.

The answer is source control, dilution is not the solution to indoor pollution and increasing ventilation rates is a horrible problem. The right way to do it is to not have the contaminant built into the building in the first place. And despite all of the people saying that there’s a clear link between certain levels of contaminants and medical effects, the epidemiology hasn’t been done.

People claim that it’s been done, but believe it or not, we don’t have the information in houses. We don’t know what the contaminants are. They have not been measured carefully and we’re making national policy decisions on ventilation going blind, with a bunch of people just getting together and offering an opinion. And the opinion is based on which political faction has managed to stack the ASHRE committee with their dominant voting block.

That’s not the way to do this. I mean you’d think with the amount of energy that buildings consume, and the amount of energy that residential buildings consume, that maybe somebody, like the federal government, would actually fund a study. You would need $20 million or $30 million and to go around and measure a whole slew of things in houses. That’s not been done, but yet, changing the ventilation rate by 15 or 20 percent is going to have more than that impact cost-wise on energy within the first year.

This kind of stuff drives me crazy. They manage to piss away money on stupid s*** and they can’t seem to fund something that’s important.

And the same thing in commercial buildings. You know, people are claiming that this level of formaldehyde ^[10] is dangerous and this level isn’t. What’s all of this based on? I mean most of the limits and for indoor air in buildings we’re simply taking occupational numbers and dividing by ten. Why not dividing by 12? Why not dividing by 15? In California, because California is crazy on every conceivable level, they divide by 100 ^[11]. So, in one state the occupational number because the indoor number by dividing by ten and California divided by 100. If people knew how arbitrary and capricious this was they’d go, “Well, you’re kidding me.”

Inhabitat: Is California basing their numbers on European models?

Joe Lstiburek: No. It wasn’t based on any models. What’s amazing is formaldehyde in houses doesn’t respond to ventilation rate changes. So if you’re ventilating at 0.1 versus 0.2 versus 0.3, the formaldehyde concentration remains constant. The reason is the more you ventilate the more it emits. You ventilate less it emits less. Don’t put it in the building, that’s a phenomenally successful way of dealing with the problem.

I’ll give you another example, which will never happen, but late at night I dream about it — have you’ve heard of the MSDS sheets?

Inhabitat: Sure.

Joe Lstiburek: They tell you absolutely nothing. What people think that the MSDS sheets tells us is what the manufacturer puts in their product. The answer is no. That would be useful if they told us everything that went into this product and the quantities, but that’s viewed as a trade secret.

What the MSDS sheet tells us is that if you put this into the product, you have to tell us that it’s in the product and this comes from a very short list of “this’es”. In other words, in order to get on that short list it takes a lot of effort. It really has to be miserable and beyond a shadow of a doubt, bad. So there’s a very short list of what you have to notify.

What that means is that people are idiots to take anything from that list, to put it in there. So they use a whole bunch of other things that nobody knows anything about or haven’t made it to the list, but they don’t have to tell you about it.  I always laugh –LEED and other people want you get to the MSDS sheet – and I’m saying “Why?”  What you need to do is you need to take one of the guys who makes this stuff out to dinner, get him drunk, and ask him: “What’s in there?”

Inhabitat: Another study funding opportunity for the U.S. government?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, not funding – basically, change the law. Make them tell us what’s in their products.

Inhabitat: So that regulation would make complete sense?

Joe Lstiburek: Phenomenal sense. Tell us what’s in it.

Inhabitat: Let’s get back to energy a little bit. Is thermal bridging the next cusp of people’s thinking about how building envelopes work?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, it’s no mystery to anybody who knows about buildings that it’s a big deal. I’m kind of amused that people are just figuring out well, glass is really bad and there’s too much it. Not having insulation continuously is a big deal.

What’s even more important is that air tightness is even more important. There’s no requirement for air tightness. How can you with a straight face talk about energy efficiency and not have a requirement for air tightness?

Inhabitat: How would you test for air tightness in a large building?

Joe Lstiburek: It’s easy. Every building has a mechanical system. You just simply open all of the interior doors and turn on the exhaust fan and measure the pressure difference, then close the exhaust fan and turn on the supply fan and measure the pressure difference. You got your entire building leakage.

You don’t even need to do it that way. Just simply take a compartment and measure the pressure in the compartment. You don’t have to measure the whole building, just measure pieces of the building. There are a lot of ways to do this.

I wrote about it in Understanding Air Barriers ^[12] on our web site and actually did my doctoral dissertation on how some of this can be done. It’s just that it takes about a half a day to set up the test and about 15 minutes to run the test. For people that claim that this is complicated and hard, it’s just not hard.

The problem is that because it is easy to do, and if you actually do it and you create a performance requirement, people will have to meet that requirement. That means they’re going to have to change what they do and that’s what the problem is; people don’t want to change what they do.

Inhabitat: You have been successful in taking complex building dynamics and making them relatively simple to understand. Do you think that building science is less complicated than a lot of folks out there are making it sound with a lot of hemming and hawing?

Joe Lstiburek: It’s a lot less complicated than people say and my only observation is there’s a lot of money to be made in keeping the peasants confused. I mean it’s so easy. What drives me crazy is WUFI models and computer simulations. None of that is necessary, and most of it is done wrong anyway.

I spend most of my time, and my firm spends a lot of time debunking other people’s reports, saying, “You can’t possibly be saying this based on what you did. The problem is the wall is leaking because you don’t have a flashing. Your hygrothermal model has nothing to do with why this wall is wet.”

Inhabitat: They couldn’t see the trees for the forest.

Joe Lstiburek: They couldn’t see the water through the trees.

Inhabitat: There you go. It sounds like, especially when we start talking about air barriers, you just do that right than you solve a lot of the other problems. You made a good living on buildings having lots of moisture issues.

Joe Lstiburek: It’s been a hell of a good life. I get to spend the entire winter in Aspen. Are you kidding me? The key to spending your entire winter in Aspen is to find a woman to love and marry, stay married to her, and get into fixing buildings. You need both.

Inhabitat: Good advice for the upcoming engineers who read this. So what’s the take away? Is it that air barriers are the biggest thing we need to focus on?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, no. Look, if I was in charge of teaching architects building science becomes very simple ^[13]. Building enclosure is an environmental separator. You want to keep the outside out and the inside in, except when you want to bring the outside in and when you want to have the inside out. That’s it and there are certain rules on how to do that.

I have this little list of rules and it all can be distilled into we need a water controlled barrier, an air controlled barrier, a vapor controlled barrier, and a thermal controlled barrier. Then we need a method of exchanging the inside with the outside based on when we want to. That’s it, there are sub-rules on how you do this, but that’s fundamentally it.

And I would have loved to written my own LEED standard. It would have been a paragraph long and it would start off by saying, “Don’t do stupid things,” and, “Do this,” and we’re done. “And measure everything,” because if you can’t measure it, I don’t believe it.

Inhabitat: Are we looking at a climate specific design?

Joe Lstiburek: Oh, I don’t believe that. The wall-roof foundation assembly that I laid out works everywhere.

If you are doing poor assemblies you have to be very careful climatically, but a good assembly works everywhere. The irony is that the crappy assemblies are very climatically sensitive. The good assemblies are climatically robust.

Inhabitat: So, does that mean state-of-the art is that we can find wall systems that can be translated to work in almost any situation.

Joe Lstiburek: I have a little bit of fun with this. I teach at the university now and I no longer fail stupid students because that would be discriminating against stupid students. I say, “Look, I have to pass you. You’re an idiot. I can’t fail you, but I’ll make a deal. Promise me this – that regardless of where you end up and how long you practice, you’re only going to use this wall design, and this roof design, and this foundation design, because they work everywhere.”

Inhabitat: And forever.

Joe Lstiburek: And forever. Quite frankly, that is true.

Inhabitat: So you feel confident that building science is at the point now that we can build a quality envelope that we’ll feel comfortable with 40 years from now. We go back, we tear that thing up, we’ll feel that everything’s done what it needs to?

Joe Lstiburek: Oh, we were able to do that 50, 60 years ago. The answer is yes, we’re able to do that now and we were able to do that before I was born. The irony is that even though that information has been known for so long, it’s not been used. And my observation on that is that people don’t use stuff until it becomes impossible for them to not use it. In other words, things become intolerably bad before there’s a change or an intervention. It’s only recently that things are becoming intolerably bad enough that we have to intervene and fix, even though we knew or some folks knew how to avoid the problems 50 or 60 years ago.

None of this is very complicated, none of this is a big mystery. What’s happening now is that we need to get this information into the people who need to make the decisions in an informed matter. In other words, people aren’t inherently bad. They just don’t have the information they need at the right time to make the right decision. So this is an information issue as opposed to a research issue. We don’t need to do anymore research. We need to do better transfer of what we know to the people who need to make the decisions at the right time.

Inhabitat: So where is that information now? What are the sources for working professionals to tap into this in a meaningful way?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, NIBS, National Institute for Building Science ^[14] has got a group called BETEC ^[15] and they’ve got some phenomenal design stuff online. I mean I hate to brag, but our website BuildingScience.com ^[16] is pretty darn good. And it’s for free –actually not, you’ve already paid for it. A lot of that work came out of government contracts that we were paid to do.

The National Research Council of Canada ^[17] and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation ^[18] have fabulous information online. The Department of Energy ^[19], USDoE, has got phenomenally good information online. And by and large, it’s fairly consistent. There aren’t big differences and wherever there is a big difference, just agree with me.

Inhabitat: Very good.

Joe Lstiburek: That was a bit of humor there, but you’re not laughing.

Inhabitat: I’ll write, “Ha-ha,” in there.

Joe Lstiburek: The big questions have been answered consistently well by all of these groups and there are issues in the margins, but they’re not big issues.

Inhabitat: When you go on the DoE web site there’s like 400 links or something like that to the energy software available, energy modeling software, for instance. Now, is any of this stuff really –

Joe Lstiburek: Useful? No. No. No.

Inhabitat: Everybody is wishing to have that magic bullet software?

Joe Lstiburek: Well, I view it as in love with Star Trek. I blame it all on Star Trek. Spock could go into that shuttle bay with his tricorder, do a tricorder scan and figure out that the tachyon field was interfering with the dilythiam crystals, causing him to off-gas, which is why Uhura has a headache. F**k that. We can’t measure s**t like that, but we believe that we can measure everything.

Watch NCIS and Abby Sciuto, that babe in the lab – you know, freaking does magical things and measures s**t and she does it all in 45 minutes, not counting commercials. It’s that we couldn’t do in 20 years even if we had unlimited money and people think that you can simulate and measure stuff. The world is not that clean and neat.

The best way we learn all of this is to build it and you see what happened. You say, “Ah, this worked. This didn’t,” and that’s the best education or information. That information lies in the experience base of the older engineers, architects and contractors.

One of the biggest problems we have is what I call our own institutional memory. We do a lousy job in construction, engineering and architecture, passing on the lessons of one generation to the next. So we are this huge, dysfunctional family. We need a Dr. Phil to get us all to talk to one another, or an Oprah, or somebody.

Inhabitat: It’s amazing how many times you refer to the fact that you would hypothesize something, come up with it and find it – it was in the books in the ‘50s and the ‘40s and the ‘60s.

Joe Lstiburek: It’s funny. I am one of the most frustrated, egotistical engineers on the planet. I thought I was a clever, smart guy who figured out stuff and it turns out that nothing I’ve ever thought I figured out did I actually figure out. It had been already done – better, earlier, more elegantly by not just one person, by lots of people. And we’re having all of these same discussions and arguments over and over and over again.

You know what? I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day, except I don’t have an Andie MacDowell.

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