What is Passive House? A Climate Hawk’s Companion

Summertime is perfect for catching up on stuff, so here's a repost of a Climate Hawk's Companion episode we did back in February discussing the building practice known as "Passive House."

Here's the original blog from January:

In this edition of the Climate Hawk’s Companion we discuss the building method known as Passive house, or passivehouse, or passivhaus.

Passive House (Passiv Haus in German!) is a method of building houses that cuts energy usage by more than 80%. How? The simplest answer is to build an air-tight building, but then invent an air exchanger that both provides fresh air and transfers the warmth from the outgoing air to the incoming air.

In this edition of “A Climate Hawk’s Companion” we talk to Fred Gordon, a passionate advocate for the Passive House movement. Fred is so passionate, he is building one of the largest Passive House designs in the country in the South End of Boston at the Distillery.

Listen as Fred talks about Passive House and his interesting perspective on this exciting architectural movement.

…Ted McIntyre

P.S. Yes it is true! The Massachusetts Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the world. Wikipedia says so!