When they meet at the 6th Annual North American Passive House Conference this week, the masters of super-sealed, ultra-insulated building design will be seeing and hearing about the latest SeriousWindows technology. Serious Energy will be exhibiting and, on the podium, co-presenters John Semmelhack of the Mid-Atlantic and Graham Irwin of Northern California, will be sharing their  repeatable method for getting accurate predictions of actual energy performance using examples comprised of SeriousWindow models within the Passive House Planning Program, PHPP.

Solar Decathlon team from University of Tennessee wins top energy scores for design of a vented double-glass façade system that relied on the super-insulating properties of SeriousGlass.

The hangover from the housing bubble lingers on.

At Door and Window Manufacturer Magazine, author Kevin Confidential (Disclosure: I think he works at Serious) has posted some interesting, and somewhat ominous, stats for the building industry.

“The philosophy behind Passive House design is fairly simple: super-insulate and mercilessly air-seal the exterior envelope of the house in order to create a volume that will maintain a very constant and comfortable temperature level inside the house year-round,” explains Kevin Killen, Senior Associate Architect at EHDD Architecture. Killen and EHDD Principal, Scott Shell, offer an inspiring case study demonstrating how they met the rigorous Passive standards of air tightness.

North Carolina’s first Passive House, located in Chapel Hill, is also the first  on built out concrete.  Passive House Consultant, and owner of Anchorage Building Company, Chris Senior told Jetson Green that using concrete for the entire exterior of the home helped keep costs “surprisingly reasonable.”

Congratulations to architect Dennis Wedlick!  The Hudson Passive House is now officially the first certified passive house in New York State.  The Hudson House not only meets the rigorous requirements of the Passive House Standard, like an air tight envelope with ACH < 0.6 and a 90% reduction in heating and cooling energy, but it is also a stunningly beautiful and supremely livable home.

The Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), collects data on how U.S. households use energy including home building characteristics, appliances, demographics and fuel use.  The last RECS was carried out in 2009 and yesterday the DOE released a first batch of data from the 2009 survey.

Checking in on Chicago’s impressive recycle-reuse-energy-efficient-everything-retrofit, Elemental Building at 1610 N Honore Street, the home’s super-insulating fiberglass SeriousWindows are standing up to the harshness of their first mid-western winter.

The well recognized retrofit of 1610 N Honore Street, Chicago, was part of the GreenBuild 2010 tour program last week. Self-taught green developer and building owner, Tom McGrath, led fellow green building professionals through the inspiring project. Tom’s mission for the retrofit of the 1890 original building in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood was to resuse as much of the existing structure as possible, with as much existing material as possible. Where new materials were called for, Tom chose high energy-efficient materials such as Icynene spray foam insulation, high R-value SeriousWindows 925 fiberglass series to super-insulate the building’ relatively high total window-to-floor area, and Eco-Deco water based, low VOC paint.

The Hudson Passive Project is on track to be the first certified Passive House in New York State. The three-bedroom, two-bath home is designed to use 90% less heating energy than a typical three-bedroom house; this remarkable efficiency is a function of the architecture as well as some key elements, including super-insulating windows. The project was just featured in The Architects Newspaper. 

Study Offers Solid Data for Cost-Effective Residential Retrofits and New Construction (full press release below)

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – August 3,  2010 –  Serious Energy, nee Serious Materials, the leading provider of high-tech products and services which reduce energy usage in the built environment, today announced that a recently completed study ranks high R-value windows as the number one consideration for optimum energy-saving performance and return on investment for both residential retrofits and new home construction.

Watch DIYNetwork's Amy Matthews visit to Serious Energy's Colorado window factory to find out why you lose so much energy from dual pane windows. You'll get an inside look at how high R-value super-insulating windows are made in one of our plants. It was terrific to host Amy and the crew from their great new show This New House!

Thomas McGrath is very serious about reducing energy usage of the 1890's building he owns in Chicago. With partners Ted Roszkowski of ACT Construction and architect Gerhard Zenserling, this "gut retrofit",  resuses as much existing materials as possible and focuses on replacing energy inefficient materials where needed - like the windows. The net result aims to be USGBC Leed Platinum, Chicago 3 star rated, and Energy Net Positive (meaning, excess energy will power the building, going beyond just being energy "net zero").

Doug Boleyn is an energy expert. In 1974, he and his wife built a solar heated home. Today, Doug manages commercial solar programs for Energy Trust of Oregon, sits on the Board of Directors of Solar Oregon, and has applied his energy conservation expertise to countless projects. Doug leads through practice, demonstrating Net Zero design in his current Pacific Northwest home. We met Doug and the partners on his Net Zero home project, energy efficiency builders Cellar Ridge Custom Homes and architect Mathhew O. Daby a couple months ago during Solar Oregon's Goal Net Zero 2010 event.

Liane Curtis recently finished installing high R-value fiberglass windows into her home in Somerville, Massachusetts. The install was part of a Deep Energy Retrofit project Liane is currently undertaking. This project, incorporating SeriousWindows and other energy saving measures, will decrease her home's energy usage to less than half of what it used to be! She has put together a great blog detailing every step of the retrofit, including the install of and reaction to her new windows.

We were very fortunate to be asked to participate and lend our SeriousWindows to two special projects of ABC’s Extreme Makover: Home Edition. Led by partners G&M Contracting, Burch Builders Group, and thousands of volunteers, the new construction of the Fishing School community center and the Tripp Family home, both located in under-served neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., was completed in just 7 days.

What makes these two projects exceptionally special is that both were built to be as near net-zero energy as possible. Energy measures included SIPS panels provided by Winter Panel, solar electric systems from Aurora Energy, insulated Concrete Foundation forms from Leep Green, and super-insulating high R-value windows – which is why we were asked to contribute SeriousWindows.

Without a doubt, EcoFutures Building has been a leading innovator in the development of energy efficient homes building in the Colorado area – and certainly an exemplary act to follow across the country. They have been designing and building Net Zero Energy Homes since 2005, not only for private clients but also for professionals and the public for education and motivation.  By proving that homes for all income levels can be built to produce more energy than they use, Ecofutures has set precedents that challenge the housing industry to move toward carbon neutrality – now.

ZETA Communities' recent Oakland Net Zero Live/Work Townhome project was named 2009 GreenBuilder Magazine's Home of the Year Grand winner in the December issue.  What makes this LEED Platinum project stand out is the project's location in a dense population area that's relatively affordable.  Many Net Zero projects to date have been larger, single family homes (see other Net Zero projects. After all, the number one action individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint is to live in urban centers.

The Palo Alto Net Zero Energy House is a completely renovated 1936 house in Palo Alto, California that is now net zero energy and carbon-neutral.