Passive house

Claude helps me get the things out of my brain and creates the framework.

What the idea is that you build passive house to be healthier, more energy efficient.

If less than 1% of the population are building passive house, then it's not actually solving the issue.

We all scroll past the finished shot, the styled room, the perfect light, the caption that makes the whole thing look effortless.

This is the part that came before it.

The decisions, the setbacks, the things nobody puts on the grid.

Let the conversation begin.

Two years ago, my guest sat in this chair known as the passive house guy.

And I haven't seen a reimagined building yet where that didn't happen.

What if the buildings we construct today could solve the problems of tomorrow? Welcome to the Passive House Podcast, where we explore the ideas, people, and practices transforming the way we build.

Brought to you by Passive House Accelerator and the Reimagined Buildings Collective.

Join a growing movement of builders, designers and changemakers levelling up their practice and building the networks they need to thrive.

Find free resources at PassiveHouseAccelerator.com and take it further inside the Reimagined Buildings Collective, our members-only community built for people serious about healthy, climate-ready buildings.

Welcome back to the Passive House podcast.

I'm Matthew Cutler coming to you from Auckland in New Zealand.

I'm joined this week by Zack Semke back in Seattle.

So one was the sustainability side.

And so it's a passive house design with, you know, incredible energy and thermal efficiency.

But then on the other side, because it was where it's sitting, it's on a hill facing towards the national park.

And that's just the absolute worst possible fire setting because the fires roar up the hill.

So 360 degrees rated as flame zone.

So it's the highest fire rating there.

So we went with a passive house design, which actually has some things that make it really good for fire resilience.

But then we also had a lot of input from, you know, Simon himself is in the Rural Fire Service, so obviously he knows what that means.

I'm your host, Sharon Robinson.

I am the author of this book, Babe, Let's Build a House, that I've based this podcast on.

And this is episode six.

So in this episode six, we cover chapter six in the book.

So you can get an accurate price and an interim contract for you.

It also covers any RFIs and any adjustments to the drawings that council have requested.

If you are going for Homestar or Passive House, I do cover Passive House and Homestar in episode eight and nine.

So if you are going for Passive House or Homestar, this is the stage where your consultant, whether it's a Passive House consultant, whether your architect's a Passive House designer or your Homestar designer and assessor would then have that documentation to be able to submit that for a design certification.

And as our company grew and our main headquarters is in Chicago and I'm in our Detroit office, Our roles have changed.

And so I'm in the office more, but working on the higher performance projects like Passive House.

I do LEED, Energy Star, still call it Zero Energy Ready Homes, but the DOE Efficient New Homes

Program, NGBS, all that kind of stuff.

And he instilled this kind of bug, I would say, with me to be looking at better ways of designing, better ways of building.

Rob Dumont helped build the Saskatchewan Conservation House, along with Passive House pioneer Harold Orr.

And he was a pioneer of Art 2000.

We started doing triple pane low E, very, very simple change, but it was just really kind of those little best practices.

It only took 20 years to get here.

Which we refer to as the third first passive house in Georgia because the first two didn't make it.

See, so you're doing it again.

And this time it's going to get.