Have you ever started eating a big ol’ plate of spaghetti and after having eaten enough to stuff a football team find yourself staring at a big ol’ plate of spaghetti that doesn’t look any smaller?  Welcome to the Spaghetti Days of the Seattle Passive House project.  There is still enough work left for another meal, but Dan is almost stuffed.  He is pushing hard to get it wrapped up and it is looking good.  They are laying tile, the cabinets have been installed upstairs and need to be installed downstairs, countertops are coming, and the concrete slab has been stained a really great chocolate brown color.  A very spiffy hot water heater has been installed, the HRV needs to be hooked up, the gas has to be approved, stairs to the ADU are coming, the handrail has been started, the tile for the pervious driveway sections has been laid and the gravel/dirt mixture needs to be filled in on top.  There is a bunch of stuff that needs to be cleaned out and at the end of the day it still looks like a full plate of spaghetti, but Dan is still hungry to finish this project and is willing to talk to interested future Passive House homeowners about building their projects, so if you want to talk to Dan Whitmore about building a project, you can email him.

Stay tuned and keep your fork – there’s dessert coming!

Linda

I had a chance to tour the Mini B in its’ new temporary home at the Phinney Ridge Neighborhood center.  I love it!  It would be perfect for some property I have in Eastern Washington.  We held a meeting of the PHNW Events Planning committee with 6 of us sitting around talking for a few hours and it was really comfortable.    The bathroom and kitchen size is just perfect for a small retreat place, temporary dwelling, or even permanent dwelling if you have chosen your belongings carefully.  In its current location the Mini B does not have the plumbing hooked up, but the electrical, ventilation, and wall heater all work.  Check out the Mini B’s blog for times you can visit and tour it for yourself – the next big event is January 30th.

I have moved the Existing Resources blog from WordPress here to my own ExistingResources.com website.  The look is a little different, but the old content is all here.

Welcome to the first post of the New Year!  This year I will be blogging about an Existing Resource project  and talk about what needs to be done to take a 1968 Rambler and convert it into a Passive House!  At this point the owner is just looking for ideas and costs, so the project is not slated to go into actual construction, but planning is the key component of any Passive House project, and when you are starting with an Existing Resource it is even more critical.  I’ll walk you through the steps as I plan out the project.  Feel free to ask questions, suggest solutions, or just play the “What if?” game.  I want as much interaction on this thread from everyone so that together we learn and explore the ins and outs of an Existing Resource Passive House Project.

It’s been quiet here on the Exsting Resources blog, but that doesn’t mean that Passive House has had nothing going on!  I attended the North American Passive House Conference in Portland, OR earlier this month and was both energized and exhausted at the end of it.  It was truly great to meet others in the Passive House community and hear what they are doing.

I attended some great sessions and came away with so many ideas it’s hard to figure out which way to go next.  One of the sessions was on Passive House schools in Europe and the speaker, Ludwig Rongen, was particularly inspiring.  I took notes on his talk as fast as I could and plan to provide information on some of the projects he mentioned on the Passive House Commercial site of the http://PassiveHouseCentral.US community in the near future.

I need to get back over to the Seattle Passive House for another update and let you know how that is wrapping up.  I also want to give you a heads up for what is coming up after the first of the year for this blog.  I am living in a 1968 rambler and the homeowner has asked me to work up a plan to convert it to Passive House.  I don’t know if if will go all the way through to construction, but it will be a good exercise AND and excellent opportunity to blog about how you start with an Existing Resource like a 1968 Rambler, figure out how it was put together, and then figure out how to convert it to Passive House.  I think it should be a lot of fun.

When I do start the Rambler Retrofit blog project I want to explore a variety of ways and materials to use to test out in the PHPP and THERM.  What I am looking for are ways to save time and money while still providing a plan that will make this house a Passive House.  I have a very unusual idea I’ll toss out for discussion, but I also want your ideas.   This is where Passive House shines – you can model your ideas prior to building them.   We can examine the cost difference and the performance difference of different materials and methods and see just what goes into making the decisions for the final plans.  I think it will be a great experience and your involvement will make it all the more satisfying.

If you want to start now with your “what if’s” I’ll make a list.  It can be a material, method, or software modeling question.  The more you want to know the more useful this blog will be, so ask away!

Thanks!

Linda