Home Air Quality Hotel Project to Pursue Passive House Certification

Hotel Project to Pursue Passive House Certification

1078
0
SHARE

I am currently working on an article on the Hotel Marcel. It is expected to open next year in New Haven, Conn. The hotel will have many unique features—net-zero energy, LEED Platinum, etc. One of the most unique features about the hotel is that it is expected to be the first Passive House certified hotel in the United States. I just came across the certification in another article I read so I thought I would share a bit about the certification.

The Passive House certification program is run by PHIUS (Passive House Institute US, Inc.) It is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization committed to making high-performance passive building the mainstream market standard. PHIUS trains and certifies professionals, maintains the PHIUS+ climate-specific passive building standard, certifies and quality assures passive buildings, and conducts research to advance high-performance building. Buildings that meet the PHIUS+ standard use 40 to 60 percent less energy for space conditioning than conventional buildings. PHIUS+ buildings provide superior indoor air quality, resilience during power outages, and an extremely quiet, comfortable indoor environment. Project teams are increasingly adopting passive building principles and the PHIUS+ standard for single-family, multifamily, and commercial construction to achieve Net Zero buildings.

Brief History

PHIUS’ roots trace back to 2003, when Katrin Klingenberg designed and built her own passive house residence in Urbana, Ill.—the very first home in the United States built to the passive building energy standard. Her experience led her to co-found e-cological Construction Laboratory (e-colab) with builder Mike Kernagis in 2003 as a nonprofit affordable housing developer in Urbana, Ill. to further investigate the feasibility of applying passive building principles in the United States. Working in partnership with the City of Urbana, e-colab became a Community Home Development Organization (CHDO) and built single-family passive house projects as affordable housing units.

As interest in passive building grew in North America, Klingenberg and Kernagis oversaw the transformation and expansion of e-colab into PHIUS in 2007. PHIUS is now the leading passive building standard setting, research and information provider, training, and certification institute in North America. PHIUS supports and inspires the growing community of passive building professionals and guides large-scale market transformation in the North American building industry.

PHIUS released the PHIUS+ 2015 Passive Building Standard in March of 2015, the first passive building standard based upon climate-specific comfort and performance criteria, and the only passive building standard that requires onsite QA/QC for certification. Developed in cooperation with Building Science Corporation under a US Department of Energy (DOE) grant, the PHIUS+ 2015 standard targeted the sweet spot between investment in conservation and payback, guiding designers to achieve the most comfortable, energy efficient and cost-effective building possible. Passive building principles and the PHIUS+ standard also provide the best path to achieving zero energy and carbon.

Based on exhaustive modeling across climate zones, PHIUS has since released the updated PHIUS+ 2018 standard. It retains climate-specific, cost effective targets, with further guidance for large buildings, and a continuing evolution toward Net Zero.

LEAVE A REPLY