Passive House Pioneers
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 1:28AM 
We are having a conference in Seattle next month that will explore Passive House at a larger scale than has been explored here before. In a way I feel like I am amongst the Passive House Pioneers of the Pacific Northwest.
Our membership boasts Certified Passive House Consultants that were in the very first class that was taught in Urbana, IL. I was a member of the first PH Consultants training class taught here in Seattle. It is a rare thing to be at the cutting edge of a new movement, and though the PNW has been very active in the sustainable construction realm for decades, Passive House as an official certified housing standard has only existed a short while.
As a community we are excited and eager to share and learn what we can about any aspect of Passive House construction. We have eager members that have attended multiple National and International conferences so they can learn and bring that information back to share with us. Passive House in the Northwest and elsewhere around the US is an incredibly excited, sharing, and caring community.
It is with that excitement and sharing that we at PHNW are blazing new trails. We are expanding the discussion of Passive House in our area to embrace learning about Passive House for larger constructions as well as for the single family projects. We have arranged for a well-known and talented speaker from Austria, Gunter Lang, to be our keynote speaker at our conference next month (Friday Sept 16th, at SPU in Seattle). To start the conversation heading in the right direction for larger constructions we have Adam Cohen who will discuss the 3 Passive House commercial projects he has designed and is in the process of building. One is already done.
Knowing that we need to understand all aspects of building successful constructions we are also bringing in a fabulous speaker from Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Andre Desjarlais is the head of the building envelope group at ORNL and an instructor of the WUFI moisture migration software. I met Andre when I took a WUFI class from him earlier this year. This guy knows moisture migration!
Our local talent is very well represented with Mike Hatten and Peter Reppe both of Solarc Architecture and Engineering. Mike has an incredible background in building energy efficiency. He will have quite a bit that he can share in designing a building that goes beyond just the heating and cooling aspects. Peter has done research in the successful larger Passive House constructions in Europe. He has put together an excellent talk that will present those projects.
As we blaze those trails we also remember that not everyone knows about Passive House or will be involved in the larger projects. We will have a breakaway session for folks who don’t know what Passive House is all about. Moisture migration and energy efficiency are topics that certainly translate to all size of Passive House projects. There will be something for every interest.
The Small Planet Workshop will be one of the vendors at the conference. Be sure to come by and say hi should you come. We love to find out who our readers are.
If you want more information on the conference or to register online, please visit http://PHNW.org
Being a pioneer in today's day and age is so much fun. If you would like to join us at our monthly meetings, participate in board activities, we would love to have you join us – information is on the link above. Who knows, perhaps you will be in the next Consultants training class!
Conference, Gunter Lang, PHNW, Passive House, pioneer, trail blazer in Conferences
Reader Comments (1)
You make it enjoyable and you still take care of to keep it sensible. I can't wait to read much more from you. This is really a terrific website.