A tour of four different Passive (and near Passive) Houses in the Chicago area was conducted on the last day of the 2015 North American Passive House Conference. The sites varied from Chicago’s very first Certified Passive House to a couple that were under construction. The homes toured were collaborations between builder Brandon Weiss of […]
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One of the most eye-opening seminars for me at the recent North American Passive House Conference was a talk by Carri Beer (Brennan+Company) and Michael Hindle (Passive to Positive) titled “Foam Free Assemblies for a Net Zero Passive House in Western Maryland”. Michael spoke with great passion about the importance of material selection criteria other […]
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Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in some airtightness testing at the Evergreen Brickworks (a LEED Platinum building). The testing was for a research group from Ryerson University and was led by Greg Labbe and Shervin Akhavi from the BlueGreen Group. To sufficiently depressurize the building, seven blower door fans were required! We were very […]
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Celebrating success is – well it’s awesome. Advancing our understanding to improve our practice, particularly when it comes to healthy buildings, is priceless. It’s why we went to Vancouver in June. We were there for the National Conference of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC). CaGBC, along with SAB Magazine, presented us with the Canadian […]
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The air tightness of residential homes in Ontario has increasingly been improved over the past few decades. According to a public 2009 study of 100 new homes, “The average leakage of current housing is 3.14 ACH50”. Of the homes in the study, detached homes registered an average air leakage of 2.82 ACH50, and attached or […]
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by Connor Malloy An introduction to LEED for Homes As one of 2 LEED for Homes accredited professionals located in the Greater Toronto Area (1 of 5 in Ontario), I am often asked about the LEED for Homes rating system. Due to the brand equity of the parent rating system and its creator, LEED for […]
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