As part of the
International Open Passive House Days - New York Passive House (NYPH) organized a carpool to the
Hudson Passive Project. Seven cars left NYC around 10.30 so at 1pm this Saturday around 20+ NYPH-members and Meetup followers had arrived at the PH in Claverack, NY. In addition there were also a dozen or more neighbors and locals present that wanted to check out this super efficient house that had been built in their town.
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| Hudson Passive Project's barn typology with large south facing facade |
The house, nicely tucked away in the rolling hills of Columbia County welcomes you with its impressive barn inspired south facing wall of windows (see pic). Once inside, after taking of your shoes, the large open living space was a great location for Dennis (and his team, contractor, designers, NYSERDA) to explain the how and what behind the project.
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| Living room during discussion with Dennis Wedlick |
After explaining the basic ideas behind the house and its Passive House features (Heat from the south facing windows, Efficient HRV, R-48 SIP walls, R-54 roof). But the biggest impression on PH crowd was made by the blowerdoor test test results of below 0.2ACH50. The carefull execution by the Bill Stratton Building Company of all developed details played a big part in this - but also the design concept helped towards acheiving such a remakable tight envelope - its compact form with only four bays (the trusses) on which the SIPS rest reduced the amount of seams to a minimum and thus the chance for leaks was greatly reduced.
Some great Q&A followed after which the everyone could explore the house - check out the Heat recovery ventilator (Zehnder Comfoair 200 - suspended in the ceiling), the mini-splits (for back up heat/cooing - one prominently located in the loft space) and the thermal bridge free installation of skylights and windows - the finished millwork/trim wasn't installed yet, which was great because you could really see the insulation that makes the break.
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| Mini split unit built into wall of loft |
The only surprise for me was the slightly chily concrete floor slab - with your shoes off you really noticed it - it should be noted that the house is still under construction and consequently the doors and windows are left open most of the day. Thus the outside November temperature come inside and cools off the slab signicantly. Once the house will be used for actual living, the slab should take on the same temperature of the rest of the house (around 70F) and the mass of the slab will actually make the temperature very stable and comfortable. You could already feel the slab slowly heating up on the south side where the sun was warming it through the high solar heat gain Serious Windows (all PH specs of the house can be found
here)
By 3pm most visitors had checked out all the PH features of the project, talked to each the design team, contractor, etc and headed back to the city, for some bouldering in New Paltz or for some BBQ in Hudson. It was great day to see an almost finished PH project and NYPH plans on hosting more Open House in the near future. Hopefully it will be really cold outside next time so we can actually experience the PH really "working" - Stay tuned and join NYPH so you won't miss out!
