Passive House

This article says passive houses (see also post of 12/30/08)are coming to the US!

The passive house concept -- which can cut the amount of energy homes consume by up to 90 percent -- has the power to dramatically reduce our energy bills and our global carbon dioxide emissions.

What's more, it has the potential to be quite affordable. The cost to build a passive house in Germany, for example, where standard features like triple-pane windows with foam seals and multiple latches are readily available, is only about 7 percent more than the cost of building a standard home.

The trade-off is that you put money you would have spent on a state-of-the-art heating system into the home's exterior shell, or "structural envelope."

Key points:
Super-insulate and make it airtight.

High-performance windows and doors.

Eliminate thermal bridges.

Optimize passive solar and internal heat gains.

Heat recovery ventilation.

And note: The first house in the United States that was tailored to the building practices and technologies developed by the Passivhaus Institut in Germany was built in Urbana, Ill., in 2003. Katrin Klingenberg and Nic Smith, the owners and designers, had it built as a prototype.