December 19, 2025 • 49 mins
In episode fourteen of The Reimagine Edit series of the Passive House Podcast, host Zack Semke shares selected clips of conversations from the Reimagine Collective. Featured speakers in this episode include Beth Campbell, Ryan Abendroth, Mike Fowler, Kevin Brennan, Kara Haggerty Wilson, Nakita Reed, and Michael Ingui.
In addition to specific deep dives into ventilation systems in hot and humid climates, designing for passive survivability during extreme weather events, and the challenges of marrying historic preservation and high-performance building methods, one theme courses throughout this episode’s collection of snippets: The need for collaboration. Construction is a team sport, and a project’s success depends on the ability of stakeholders with different sets of priorities to put aside their differences and cooperate. As our speakers note, learning to speak the language of different stakeholder helps to bridge the perceived divide between these priorities.
Unrelated, but still exciting, our episode closes on some exciting news out of Massachusetts, where Passive House is booming. To learn more about what’s happening in the state after listening to this episode, make sure to check out Cost-Efficient Passive House Delivery: Learning from the Massachusetts Experience by Passive House Massachusetts’ Beth Campbell and Alexander Gard-Murray.
The Reimagine Edit is a special series of the Passive House Podcast that shares curated insights from our Experts-In-Residence at the Reimagine Buildings Collective, our membership community of building professionals stepping up to tackle climate change. Learn more about the Reimagine Buildings Collective at https://www.reimaginebuildings.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Beth Campbell (00:02):
I think that's my number one thing is that we've
got to make these projects fun.Whether your idea of fun is like
a steep learning curve like mineis kind of a sick concept of
what fun is, but we've we'vegotta have that engagement. You
know? We've gotta have somereason why people are are coming
to do the thing that's a littlebit harder, you know, with when
(00:23):
it's it's our first time. SoYeah.
Let's have some fun while we'redelivering passive houses. And
then the whole rest of everybodywill jump in.
Zack Semke (00:33):
Hello, and welcome to the Reimagine Edit, a special
series of the Passive Housepodcast that shares curated
insights from the conversationshappening in the Reimagine
Buildings Collective, ourmembership community, where we
bring together climate consciousbuilders, designers, and change
makers to share lessons, levelup our work, and build the
(00:53):
networks we need to thrive. Inthis episode 14, we'll hear from
Beth Campbell, Ryan Abendroth,Mike Fowler, Kevin Brennan, Kara
Hagerty Wilson, Nikita Reid, andMichael Ingui. I'm Zach Semke,
director of Passive HouseAccelerator and host of the
Reimagine Buildings Collective,and thanks for joining me. Our
(01:14):
first clip is a question fromMike, a member of the Reimagined
Buildings Collective of RyanAbendroth, an expert in
residence in the collective.Ryan is the former certification
manager at Fias and founder andprincipal of Passive Energy
Designs.
Here, Mike asks Ryan about howto manage the very high humidity
in places like Houston.
Mike (01:37):
One of the things, you know, the Zender system in, I
keep wondering how to deal withthe really high humidity come in
Houston, Texas. And a goodpercentage of the summer during
the day, you're looking atseventy, eighty, 90% humidity.
So you're sucking in that highhumidity and you're blowing out
(01:57):
the dryer from the inside thehouse. You know, it's
transferring some of thathumidity is getting brought back
into the house. I don't knownumbers wise as to how much is
it.
I don't, I guess there's no wayaround it. If you want to
ventilate, you just gotta put upwith the high humidity air
(02:17):
coming in.
Ryan Abendroth (02:19):
Yeah. So a couple notes. One, my business
partner that I found a BuildZerowith lives in Houston. So we do
have some, you know, firsthandexperience of like that sort of
climate. In most of ourresidential projects there, I
feel like we are just saying,you know, it's, it's okay.
(02:39):
Like we're going to do thatventilation just like we would
maybe anywhere else for the mostpart and have then for sure a
dedicated dehumidificationsystem that is going to be
dehumidifying that space or thathouse, but it doesn't need to be
necessarily connected to oneanother. I think this is the
(03:01):
question. I've done some otherprojects with some engineers,
like the first commercialpassive house, I think it was
actually the first nonresidential passive house, was
in Kansas in 2012. And theengine, it was about 1,200 ish
square feet, but it was aclassroom. And it also had a
(03:22):
glass facade on the south with atrommel and like a little bit of
western glass too.
It had a big overhang, but sothere was a lot of solar gain.
And then I put into Wolfie like,you know, like four people or
something, you know, it's like alittle office thing, but it was
actually a classroom. And soaccording to the code, the
(03:43):
occupancy was 44 people. And ifyou put the humidity load even
of Kansas into that building,plus the, you know, glass wall
facade, plus 44 people in a1,200 square foot building,
engineer designed this thing tohave three, you know, ducted
(04:04):
mini splits and like all like18,000 or something BTUs per
hour, where Wolfie's telling youor, you know, PHP, I think back
then, that it's like 5,000, youknow, BTUs or something per
hour. But when you add the 44people in, of course, it goes
way up.
I bring this story up becausethat project, the engineer did
(04:27):
not feel comfortable putting theamount of ventilation air for 44
people into that space withoutdehumidifying it. So the ERV in
that project runs into the backof the air handler and uses the
air handler for distribution, sothat it can do, you know, some
(04:51):
dehumidification and things. Idon't know that you need to go
to that route because at thenormal residential occupancy, I
think you can
just dump ventilation air into a room. And
then that gets picked up by yourmechanical system, which should
include, you know, kind of
a whole home dehumidifier. I don't know that
(05:13):
you need to precondition it, ifthat makes sense.
Mike (05:15):
Yeah. It's gonna be a pair of, series seven, water
furnaces, which can ramp waydown and pull a lot of humidity
out, I think.
Ryan Abendroth (05:24):
So you probably are you using that for
distribution, like you'rerunning your ventilation into
that air handler, into that ductsystem?
Mike (05:33):
Wasn't planning that. The initial plan was just
traditional Zender layout, youknow, with a individual
locations in eight differentrooms
Ryan Abendroth (05:44):
Yeah.
Mike (05:45):
For intake and exhaust.
Ryan Abendroth (05:48):
And so generally, I do think that's,
like, the best way to go aboutit. Because if you run it into
the air handler according to,like, the, you know, FIES
guidelines, you also need to runthe air handler at minimum speed
all the time. And that fanenergy is also not great in a
really hot climate.
Mike (06:08):
Right.
Ryan Abendroth (06:09):
And so you you generally would want to avoid
that. However, I have a projectthat I worked on here in Saint
Louis that is geothermal and hasa zinder and has a, like, ultra
air Santa Fe dehumidifier on it.And they are all running through
the same duct system. Andthey're running that air handler
(06:29):
all the time to make sure thatthey're getting that
distribution throughout thewhole building. I don't know
that that's optimal, but thathouse still performs extremely
well.
Zack Semke (06:42):
Next up, Michael Ingui, founder of Passive House
Accelerator, and Mike Fowler,sustainability integration
leader at Methune, discuss thepassive survivability of
buildings, particularly duringheat waves. Mike draws on an
example that hits close to homequite literally, and that he's
talking about extremes in ourshared hometown of Seattle.
Mike Fowler (07:04):
You'd rather survive and be uncomfortable
rather than the alternative.
Michael Ingui (07:08):
Yeah. And I I think for me, the question
really also becomes, does itreally even make sense to design
for even more than that? Itprobably that you you probably
have to go to such extrememeasures.
Mike Fowler (07:19):
Yeah. And I think that's a great question because,
you know, we did that. Our focuswas just on, okay. We've got an
existing building stock. Whathappens when in this existing
building stock when we have anextreme heat wave?
And so none of that answeredlike, okay. What if we buy all
the brand new passive houseapartment building? What does
that how did that how does thatdo? So that was kind of a
question that was kindalingering in my mind. And the
(07:41):
next study we did in house,Claire McConnell was our
building energy modeling.
Claire is Claire is the actualperson doing all the modeling,
so I'm really standing on hershoulders and her work and skill
to do modeling. I I am thefortunate one to get to be a
spokesperson about this. Yeah.So we had a project and it was
in the California Bay Area. Andin twenty twenty two, September,
there was a giant heat wave thathit there.
(08:04):
And the owner of that building,has a very vulnerable population
that this apartment building wasgonna be built for. And they're
like, should we air condition?You know? And so we're like,
let's study it. You know?
And they were looking at, youknow, potentially, you know? And
so one of the things we proposedwas like, hey, we can make this
a passive house Mhmm. Project.And so, like, we figured out
what is, you know, runningthrough, you know? And for me
(08:26):
and like, Skyler and I think itwas Dylan, the two of them
created a passive PHPPdashboard, and I use that a ton
still.
Just sort of as as a conceptschematic, like, do we make sure
we got it we've got it sort ofdialed in so that, you know,
yeah, it might change everylittle bit, but it's basically a
we know it. I have confidencethat this is a passive house
envelope. Mhmm. And so we we wedid model that. And the and the
(08:51):
thing was, you know, at thatpoint at that heat wave also,
there was a ton of wildfiresmoke around.
And so it's like that was thequestion of, okay. Well, it's
it's that heat wave, was uppernineties. 100, a 104 was the
peak temperature. And I'm like,okay. Well, that's kind of like
if we get another heat wave inSeattle, Western Washington, a
104 is probably gonna be whereit is.
(09:13):
It's you know, might not be a108. Like, it was in the heat
dome, but, you know, at a placethat had only touched a 100,
like, twice in its history.
Michael Ingui (09:22):
Mhmm.
Mike Fowler (09:23):
You know, that's this is a good model. And I
also, at that point, now hadbalance heat recovery
ventilation, in multifamilyapartments in the Washington
code. And, you know, this is athis is a bonus chance to sort
of test that. Okay. If we ranyou know?
Ryan Abendroth (09:37):
It's huge.
Mike Fowler (09:37):
Yeah. 104 degrees outside. What we found out, you
know, similar thing. Californiacode, if you couldn't keep the
sun out or you couldn't openyour windows at night,
temperatures should climb up toa 120 degrees, which is also in
that basically extreme dangerquality. You know, in
California, the nights were coolenough, but if you were code
minimum, you could open yourwindows, the interior
(09:59):
temperature was 94 degrees.
And we're like, okay. Well,what's the passive house
envelope do? And it took it from94 down to 86 degrees.
Ryan Abendroth (10:05):
That's by itself. I mean, that's massive.
Mike Fowler (10:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And then we're like, okay.
Fantastic. We see, you know,passive house in a 104 degree
heat wave.
No power. You could ride throughit and not cry climb into that
extreme extreme caution levelabove 90. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Well, there's also wildfiresmoke. So let's say we you can't
you really don't wanna open yourwindows. You know? You don't
want to you know? That becauseyou have to make the choice of,
(10:30):
do I open my windows at night tocool off a little bit to let in
all this wildfire smoke that'sreally, really harmful to our
health?
But with a Passive House withheat recovery ventilation,
filtered air, you can closethose windows, use the HRV
system. And so instead of 86degrees, it was 87 with the HRV
running. So it was a very goodconfirmation that passive house
(10:53):
enclosures do work. And I'llemphasize right now that, you
know, I say that everything I'vebeen talking about so far,
applies from, let's say, theRocky Mountains West because
it's you know, we we live in ourour Western US climate doesn't
have a lot of humidity. But youwere think you were bringing up
a point, Michael, about there'sa there's extremes.
And do we do do we design forextremes, or do we design for
(11:15):
something sort of like that andsort of keep our fingers
crossed?
Ryan Abendroth (11:18):
Yeah. I
Mike Fowler (11:18):
think what Passive House is doing for us is by
having that focus be on lowloads and and then closure
first, designing to that givesus that buffer or insurance
piece. So have we to design forthe extreme. We're just
designing for everyday comfortand health. If we design for
that, that gives us a buffer tosort of ride through an extreme
(11:42):
piece without having to spend alot of extra cost or saying,
well, I I wanted to stay we'renot trying to keep it below 80.
We're low.
We're saying if it's an extremeheat time and there's no power,
we can go through a few days ofit being 80 degrees inside. But
we don't have to, like, look atour building enclosures and go
even more excessive. It's stillthe fundamentals. Exterior
(12:04):
shading works the best. We wannakeep the sun from coming in and
heating our space and havingability to have a little bit of
if we've got the ability to coolfreely at night, do it.
You know? And then and so Ithink that's where I think
Passive House is helping us justby designing a Passive House
that is giving us more of a,call it, an insurance policy for
better better words.
Zack Semke (12:24):
Now let's pivot to Michael's conversation with
Kevin Brennan, air tightness andinsulation expert at Brennan and
Brennan, longtime cohost ofPassive House Accelerator Live,
and now a member of the Sourcetwo thousand fifty team. Kevin
shares how he diagnoses whatneeds to happen first in
retrofits.
Ryan Abendroth (12:41):
What do you look because it sounds like before
you even get the passive house,you're looking at other
weatherization items first.Because everybody asks, well,
where do you start? But what areyou looking at when you're
looking at an existingbrownstone or an existing
freestanding house?
So just like as if you were going to your
doctor, you'd have a generalconversation about how do you
(13:02):
feel? What's your biggestconcern? Why are you here today?
Start up that conversation aboutwhy we're what your plans are
for the building and theretrofit, other big needs, big
problems in the in the building,the house moisture. Is it is it
too cold?
Is it too hot? And then the nextlevel would be do a blow a door,
find out how leaky the buildingis, and then assess the systems.
(13:23):
And then based on what theclient's needs are and plans
are, then figuring out asolution for each one of those
problems. Are you gutting thetop floor and you're gonna have
new roof space? Are you firingit down?
Are you removing the front wallfrom the inside or is this an
exterior renovation? And thenjust making those plans,
(13:44):
anything you touch, just do itto the best that you can afford
and you have the ability and youdon't really, you wanna sequence
it, right? So you don't have todo it twice. That's kind of my
advice always. And then stickwith the BPI method of test in,
test out and do no harm.
So like, the old school way ofdoing a blow a door test before
(14:05):
and after checking yourcombustion appliances to make
sure you didn't make the housedangerous is something that
should be done. It's mandated bymost energy efficiency programs,
but and then in our projectsthat we're working on the
brownstones, we're eliminatingmost of those devices, the
(14:26):
domestic hot water heaterappliance or the furnace or the
boiler. So we are makingbuildings safer just in in the
whole big picture of it. Butwhen you're planning your
renovations, just do it smart.You don't wanna have a, you
know, a backdrafted hot hotwater heater leads to somebody
getting hurt, but it's it'sweird stuff like that.
You just gotta watch out for.
Zack Semke (14:46):
Next up, Skye, a reimaginer, asks Kara Hagerty
Wilson of Onion FlatsArchitecture about how she
navigates uncertainty and guidesclients through it. A couple of
quick notes. In the clip, you'llhear Kara reference the number
point zero six, which refers toPHEUS's air tightness threshold
and air permeance of 0.06 cubicfeet per minute per square foot
(15:11):
of enclosure area at 50 Pascalsof pressure. Kara also mentions
Birdo, which is Boston'sBuilding Emissions Reduction and
Disclosure Ordinance.
Michael Ingui (15:24):
I was curious also with so much unknown until
you're able to do investigatorydemo and like get a more
thorough kind of forensicevaluation of the existing. How
are you dealing with that bothon the client's understanding of
the overall budget and justhaving to do revisions across
(15:46):
the different phases. Yeah. I'llsay that the surprises we found
when we think of Hano Homes, theproject, the smaller project we
presented, the surprise wasn'tanything we had to change. It
was more something that affectedour air sealing, our ability to
get as airtight as we wanted.
So it didn't make for a change.We had to change our
(16:11):
perspective, I guess, on what isthe solution. We're not going to
get to 0.06 for that project. Soinstead, we're going to get to
0.26, whatever it was, and stillbe really happy about it. I
think there's these projectsthat we haven't yet encountered
something that duringconstruction was like system
altering or envelope altering oranything like that.
(16:33):
It's been more like, oh, theydidn't seal XYZ a hundred years
ago. Of course, didn't. Youknow, it's taking a taking a
small hit here and there andkind of pivoting. And then that
you and the client are alignedon the goals that are less, I
guess, quantitative and moreLike, how are you ensuring that
(16:54):
you're meeting the deliverableexpectations on the client end
of what they're receiving withthis whole process and that it's
worth the value to them? So someof the clients, the ones in
Boston in particular are upagainst the Virto ordinance.
So they're seeking todrastically reduce their energy
consumption on-site. And a lotof their financing will be tied
(17:14):
to a percentage reductionoverall. The efforts we're
putting forth tend to do a lotmore than that percentage as a
baseline. So we've not yetencountered something that made
us think that we weren't goingto hit those numbers quite yet.
That's not been something that'scome up yet.
Our clients have been reallyinvolved throughout the entire
(17:38):
processes and they're on everycall. They know every player.
They're asking all the rightquestions all the time and
they're very well educated on ittoo. So it's not like we have to
teach them on it. They alreadyknow this stuff.
So they're keeping good tabs.Amazing.
Zack Semke (17:54):
Here, Mary James, Passive House Accelerator's
senior editor, asks Cara aboutstriking a balance with
standardization in off-siteconstruction.
Mary James (18:05):
I wanna go back for a minute to the window size
being different on differentfloors. And I just wondered how
that affects the I mean, one ofthe advantages of off-site
construction I had thought was,you know, that you're producing
the same thing over and overagain. But the panel sizes must
(18:27):
have to be adjusted if thewindow sizes are different on
different floors. Yes?
Michael Ingui (18:32):
So the overall panel width will be whatever
they'd like it to be withintheir what they can span, what
they can deal with, what theycan maneuver. And then so at
Salem, the the windows aretypically they're not always in
the middle of the panel. It'd benice if they were. But to your
point, it's because the windowsare different per floor, it does
(18:55):
mean that, like, the panelwindow sill height dimension is
different for Floor 2. So it'snot like a cookie cutter
situation.
It's a little bit moreprioritized for the existing
conditions.
Mary James (19:11):
I had thought that one of the cost advantages of
using a panelized approach wasthe consistency of the panels
that you're producing, that arebeing manufactured. But I guess
maybe it doesn't matter so muchbecause they're all being
designed.
Michael Ingui (19:29):
They're all being designed. I think here where it
helps like in new construction,that's that's totally valid that
there's cost savings and beingable to, like, get a module and
build it a 100 times and installit. Here, because we're dealing
with having to kind of mergewith existing conditions, we
could lose out on thatopportunity a little bit, But we
(19:52):
still get to have reallyconsistent air sealing details
because it's happening off-site.We get QAQC on the product
that's happening off-site. Andthen, general, we couldn't build
Salem without a panel.
It's just we can't physicallyget somebody to site build that
while there's ducks in the way.Like, it it kinda had to be a
(20:14):
panelized solution if we weregonna take the systems outboard.
Zack Semke (20:19):
Next is an exchange between Karen, a reimaginer, and
Beth Campbell, Education ProgramDirector of Passive House
Massachusetts. Beth recentlycompleted interviews with over
40 Passive House builders,designers, tradespeople, and
developers Massachusetts andpackage their collective
insights into the excellentreport Cost Efficient Passive
House Delivery, coauthored withExecutive Director Alexander
(20:42):
Gard Murray. In their exchange,which includes comments from
Michael Ingui as well, Bethdives into the power of the
mockup to influence practice inthe field.
Karin (20:52):
Just to briefly summarize where I started with this is I
was working on a newconstruction, 80 unit, eight
story building here in Brooklyn,where they were doing a
panelized exterior. I went inadvance to New Jersey to look at
how they were putting the panelstogether since I was the energy
rater on the job. My job was todo the ENERGY STAR checklists,
(21:17):
the thermal checklists, also todo testing and verification on
any ductwork, which they didn'thave, but the apartment air
tightness. So from the beginningit looked like they had air
tightness handled very well, butwith the PTACs, the areas of the
PTACs which I kept warning themabout, I was fortunate enough to
(21:39):
be on this job early enough tokeep reminding them of all of
the things to look for for airtightness, and especially the
PTAC areas, but they were new tothis and this is really actually
the basis of my question. Sohere I am, I'm coming in, I'm
(21:59):
looking over their details, so Ihave to always decide am I the
policeman, am I the educator, amI the how do I get them on
board?
This really got critical. Imean, in most cases people do
listen to me, we go throughexamples and things, but when we
got to testing the apartments,it was clear that a lot of it
(22:22):
hadn't sunk in. And long storyshort, we went back and forth.
It took about six or sevenvisits to some of the same
apartments before they listenedto me and took the covers off
the PTACs and really took aclose look at what had been
going on there. My question-Karen,
Beth Campbell (22:44):
just to be clear so that everybody knows what
we're talking about right now,we're talking about the HVAC
units that go into the windowopening, correct, that do
heating and cooling? Yes.Presume they're heat pumps? Yes.
Yes.
Everybody here can imagine howyou might have air leakage
issues because you've got both awindow going into that opening
(23:05):
as well as the HVAC equipment,which may not be designed to be
particularly airtight, and thenthe installation also matters a
lot. Is that Yes,
Karin (23:15):
the problem was that obviously these P TACs created
penetrations in these reallynicely tightly sealed panels. So
the panels themselves were notan issue, the windows themselves
were not an issue, it was wherethey had failed to seal the
openings.
Beth Campbell (23:34):
And is your question more about like good
industry practices for how toseal these or more so about how
you get people to listen to youas
Karin (23:44):
the perpetrator? Because last time you made some very
interesting comments aboutworking with the trades people.
And I usually come in trying toeducate them at the beginning
and then trying to work withthem. There have been times
where I have compromised onthings that maybe I shouldn't
have quite passed on. On aprevious project, actually, got
(24:05):
into a back and forth with thearchitect who didn't understand
what was going on.
Okay.
Beth Campbell (24:09):
So I've got two I've got two thoughts for you
right off the bat, and maybethese are already things that
that you're talking about. Butnumber one, did you guys do a
mock up first before They we
Karin (24:19):
not. Were all
Beth Campbell (24:21):
sometimes it's not in the budget, sometimes
it's really hard to convey theimportance of how much money a
mock up can save a project. Butespecially if the developer is
not used to it, whatever, itmight not be in the budget. But
that's the that's the number onego to that I'm hearing from
teams is, like, without a mockup, we're screwed. You know? And
(24:42):
a mock up doesn't need to be astand alone because sometimes
there's just not budget forthat.
But especially with an ENERGYSTAR project where you've got
unit compartmentalizationalready, so you have some level
of air tightness that you'redealing with in your case, using
one of those apartment units asa proxy for whole building
(25:03):
airtightness can be a reallyuseful tactic. And that might be
something that again, how muchleverage do you have as the
consultant coming in? Probably,it's going to depend a lot on
the team, but that's one of thebiggest recommendations that
I've been hearing is get intothat apartment, air test it
early. It might mean out ofsequence ordering and
(25:25):
procurement for the team becausethat one unit is going to need
to be if airtight drywall methodis your method for
compartmentalization air sealingin that apartment, you might
have to get some out of sequencetrades in there to get that unit
done early so that you can testit. But test as early as you
can, especially with those PTACunits, it sounds like.
(25:48):
Because you saw that. Youflagged that early. Nobody paid
attention to you. So I guess myother question for you is around
incentive money. Is thereincentive money on the table for
the developer that if they missEnergy Star on this, are they
losing a bunch of money on theproject?
Because that's another way thatyou can you've got to talk
money. You don't talk thebenefits of air sealing or
(26:12):
something. And I think youprobably already know that. But
that's the only way to getpeople to listen to you is
callbacks, making sure thatstuff is in subcontractor
trades, that who ends up holdingthe bag if you don't meet these
targets. If somebody knows thatthey have financial risk on the
line, they're going to listen alot more.
But as a third party, it can bereally hard to leverage your
(26:35):
power over those subcontracts,over mock ups, or over those
incentives.
Ryan Abendroth (26:41):
Yeah. I would also say, just to echo it, time
and money. It is truly amazingto me how quickly the team can
do things after the mock Yeah.And also it's always amazing to
me because some of the mockupswe do and some of the stuff we
do, I'm so lucky. Very oftenI've got Kevin Brennan on my job
(27:04):
and John Mitchell or Ed May,and, and we're doing a townhouse
and we're doing a mockup forsomething I've already done
before.
Do you know how many times wechange how we install it? Yeah.
It's hilarious. And, becauseit's, you know, that team wants
to use this tape or that productor this thing, or, oh, hey,
because of the condition of thiswall, we want to do one thing.
(27:24):
And then they all decide, andthen like a couple days later,
everything's installedperfectly, not reinstalled.
It's just amazing to me how muchtime, which in my world is worth
more than anything in theuniverse, and not having to go
backwards. Time and then, sorry,risk. I'm right there with you.
(27:45):
So yeah, I think the mockup's agood one.
Karin (27:49):
Well, one thing I'll say is that I usually end up on jobs
way after contracts are signed.So even though if you go to my
website, you'll see I have awhole page of what I advise
developers to do, one of them isto make sure it's in the
contract. If I'm on the job andI find an issue that it's not in
anybody's contract, I just backoff and I let them work it out
(28:12):
before I go forward with thejob, which happened on another
big job. But the thing in thisparticular case, there was a
junior person in charge of theproject at this point who didn't
have a lot of authority and themain contractor was out sick.
(28:35):
And so he ended up making abunch of decisions.
He kept wanting to retest thingsand test them this way and test
them that way. And looking innot the places where I was
saying. So without coming acrossas a police person, I've been
trying to look for ways to getthe ideas across to people
(28:57):
earlier so that they listen tome earlier because I'm usually
just an asterisk on the listuntil we start testing and
something fails.
Beth Campbell (29:05):
Right, yep. And it sounds like you're already
doing it. In this case,sometimes your hands are tied,
but it's really that earlycommunication with the developer
And showing them, you know, ifyou can if you can put together
even a simple spreadsheet ofcost benefit to the developer to
have you come in early and havesome money in there for for mock
(29:28):
up, making sure that thatdoesn't get VE'd out, for
example. If you if you have anyanything where you can speak the
financial language of thedeveloper, even if, again, if
it's a simple spreadsheetshowing, like, hey. This is my
cost to come in early, and thisis how much projected savings
you're going to have to have mecome in early versus stepping in
(29:49):
late and now trying to fixproblems.
If you can show that in blackand white and then translate
what you're saying into numbers,even if they're, you know, broad
examples of numbers, they don'thave to be super accurate. They
can be order of magnitudenumbers even. That can be a
(30:10):
piece to have people's ears perkup. Really what I'm hearing from
teams is that paying that extraamount for the consultants to
come in early it pays for itselfin almost all cases.
Zack Semke (30:25):
And speaking of influencing and guiding practice
in the field, Kevin Brennan hasa lot to share. Here, Michael
prompts Kevin about thecontractor kickoff meeting.
Ryan Abendroth (30:36):
But one of my favorites, which came from you,
is the contractor kickoff, wherethat kickoff meeting with the
subs, just describe that,describe the importance of it.
Also, I'd I'd say, you know, foranybody who's on this call who
who needs to do one, describe tothem how to do one, in your in
(30:57):
your opinion, do do do it well.
My inspiration for it was just getting everyone
on the same page and setting thestandard of the project. So
coming from the GC, thearchitect, and the owners that
everyone working on the projectneeds to know the rules of the
game. You know, like, it's adifferent type of project. It's
not standard construction. Youcan't just make a hole anywhere
(31:17):
you want.
You you need to ask permission,and is this okay? I'm and I kind
of mimic that training based,not like opportunity or kind of
like introduction to the team.This way we set the hierarchy,
right? The GC's in charge, thearchitects over construction
administration's overseeingeveryone. And then who are the
key players on the project?
(31:38):
The plumber, the electrician,the insulator, the carpenter,
just making sure they all workwell together and explaining
what the goals of the projectare. This way, even though
you're an electrician, like Idon't touch outside walls or,
you know, like like I'm just anelectrician and it's like, look,
you can't you you I wouldn'truin your work. Don't ruin my
work. And then I wouldn't putholes. I wouldn't cut your I
(31:59):
wouldn't cut your electricalwires and not tell you, please
don't do that to my air batteryor my installation.
And I mimic the training basedkinda like on like a safety
training, like a safetyorientation of like, this is the
project, these are the rules,this is what it is. And then a
little bit of show and tell kindof like, these are the products
we're gonna use. This is how youair seal, not easy, right? It
(32:20):
takes some time I have to clean.And it's just creating that
level of respect on the projectfor our work, which is semi new
to old work, which is standard,and then how they all
interweave.
And then in the trades,kinesthetic learners, they like
to look, listen, and feel andtouch. And I love leaving mock
ups or kinda like drawings orways of instructing that then
(32:44):
stay on the site. And then whenyou get new people on the site,
they can be like, this is whatthis needs to look like. This is
different. This is a passivehouse.
Favorite anecdote informationwas working at one of the early
projects and it was the middleof the winter and there was no
heat on whatsoever, no temporaryAnd the painters were showing up
and they were like puttingshorts on and they would put
(33:06):
their winter clothes on to gohome. But all day, they were
working painting in theirshorts, you know, in a quiet
building. The air was good. Itwas filled with light, and it
was it's like, this isdifferent. You know?
All our other projects werefreezing. And
It was pretty wild. And not only that, but
everything, the paint was dryand everything about it was
better.
Yeah.
So you just brought up something that dawned
(33:26):
on me because I'm actuallydealing with a situation right
now where mock ups areimportant, direction is
important, and I feel like it'snot my project per se, but I'm
working on a project where thereis a little bit of time being
wasted or spent just waiting formock ups and direction. One of
the things that I guess I tookfor granted and still do is that
(33:49):
part of our, when we do theseinitial meetings with the
contractor, we've typicallyalready met with the past files
consultant and you and others,and we know what our makeup is
of our wall and our window, andpart of what they're learning on
is that makeup. So maybe talkabout the importance of a mock
up, because I think for some ofthem, I'm remembering some of
(34:10):
our products where you didn'tknow if you're gonna use peel
and stick, or you didn't know ifyou could use tape or some
liquid applied to you know, whatwhat's your what's your
recommendation there?
Early. And then navigate what the library is or
what what potential products youcan use and narrow that down. It
can be very overwhelming for ageneral contractor that's not an
(34:31):
air barrier specialist to lookat all the air barrier products
and be like, this is the one Iwant because it's intimidating.
You kinda do what you haveaccess to, like, what does my
local lumber yard sell? Whathave I used before?
Have I purchased it before?Those kinda guide a lot of the
GC decisions, logistics andpurchasing, and then figuring
out what they are. On myprojects that I worked on, me
(34:54):
being the tester, so I knew Iwas gonna test early. I tested
my own my own stuff. Ahmad, ifthis is your project or a other
do an early mock up and test it.
So build a chamber onto it. I'vebeen pitching for years. I have
never no one's ever done itbefore, but the office, the PH
with the office, whereas everyconstruction site needs a place
(35:16):
to take a phone call in ameeting that is quiet, dust
free, and depending on whatproducts you're using, you kinda
need them to be weather safe andthat they don't freeze or dry.
So build a small little cornerof one project with one window,
build three walls onto it, maybea ceiling, use the floor,
whatever it is, put it up.That's your first run mock up.
It's a place where you'll keepeverything. You test it. You
(35:37):
know it's tight. If everythingelse looks like this, we'll be
in good shape, but you'retesting like five different
things at once. You're testingthe window to the wall airtight
connection.
You're testing your fluidapplied air barrier on the
block. You're testing yourthrough floor in connections,
and then you can take it to thenext level and have it be like a
finished mock up. Among people,clients, architects, PCs. They
(35:58):
like to know what something isgonna look like in the future.
And it kind of like builds uponconfidence, but making the blow
a door or testing ability, youdon't need to send it to a
laboratory and have it tested.
You get your first window early,plus everyone likes to know,
like, was it easy to get? Was iteasy to bring in? Like, is this
(36:20):
a sample? Like, can youlogistically get me one window
in four weeks? You know, becauseif you can't get me one window
in four weeks, how are you goingget me 20 in twenty weeks?
You know?
Zack Semke (36:31):
Next, hear from Nikita Reid and her Reimagined
Design interview with Michael.Nikita is Associate Principal at
Quinn Evans and host of thepodcast Tangible Remnants. Here,
Michael asks her how sheintegrates architecture,
preservation, and highperformance building design,
priorities that are sometimesviewed as working at cross
purposes. Incorrectly viewed,Nikita would point out.
Ryan Abendroth (36:55):
How do you deal with that? Know you've got two
loves, I guess three.Architecture preservation, you
might join into one, and thenhigh performance. Yes. You're
constantly kind of marrying thethree, I guess.
Nakita Reed (37:09):
Yeah. And a lot of it is a lot of conversations.
And so I know there aresometimes that some architects,
they view like the statehistoric preservation officer or
the various regulatory bodies asadversaries as opposed to
collaborators and partners. Soon all of our projects, I am
often making sure that we arehaving these conversations early
(37:31):
and often with the variousapproval entities to let them
know this is what we'replanning, here's what we would
like to do, where are theregaps, where it's potential, what
could potentially be a holdup orthat sort of thing. And so a lot
of times when we're able to notonly help communicate what we
want to do, but also helpeducate the different policy
makers and even the regulatoryagencies on what we're trying to
(37:54):
do, that helps.
Because I found that, surprise,surprise, many of the people
enforcing policy aren't asfamiliar with the realities that
we're facing in the day to day.And so being able to bring them
along during the process beforethey just have to be like,
alright, I have ten days toapprove or deny this. I'm not
(38:16):
familiar with what this is.Denied. Come back with more
information, that sort of thing.
So having those types ofconversations early and often,
and also just developing therapport with them so that
they're familiar. Like, the thepermit official in Baltimore
knows me. The SHPO knows me. Soit's it's one of those things
where being able to have thoseconversations helps build that
relationship and that trust. Sothey also know that I'm not
(38:39):
trying to get over on them.
I'm not trying to skirt theintent of the code or the law or
the standard, but really tryingto be creative and solve these
problems.
Zack Semke (38:48):
In this clip, we hear Nikita share her advice to
architects who are beginningtheir first historic project.
Nakita Reed (38:54):
It's also funny because the number of architects
who will come to me after theyhave taken on a historic
preservation project, only torealize that, oh, there's more,
there's actual laws andstandards they have to follow on
this project. Yeah, it's not ahobby. Like, all right, what did
you get into? How can I help youunravel this and the approvals
(39:16):
you need to do? Because I thinkthat's the other thing where a
lot of times people get veryupset or they feel like
preservation is very hard oradaptive reuse is so difficult,
but really it's just they're notfamiliar with the system and the
approvals.
And so they do things in thewrong order, and that holds up a
bunch of things.
Ryan Abendroth (39:33):
Oh, sequencing. Will say, on historic
preservation, it wasn't going tobe one of my questions, but now
it is. Because you're right,sequencing. It becomes that much
more important when it's ahistoric restoration, first of
all. But if you're dealing witha certifying body, when you're
(39:56):
dealing with preservation, eventhat much more important.
So maybe talk a little bit aboutthat.
Nakita Reed (40:00):
Yes. And part of it also is just knowing where to
check to prevent some of thepitfalls. And I know most of you
are architects on the call. Thebiggest nugget I'll give you if
you're working on a historicbuilding is to double check to
see if there's an easement onthe property before you start
doing anything. One of thehorror stories that I heard when
I was first starting out in mycareer was that there was an
(40:22):
architect who was really wellknown, and she decided to do
some work for historically blackchurch in the Eastern Shore Of
Maryland.
And she was like, oh, they havethis great big parcel of land
right next to the building, theycould do a fantastic addition.
The church was like, this soundsgreat, we wanna do the addition.
Yes, please design this andlet's go. She designs it, she
(40:44):
submits it to the buildingpermit office to be able to get
a building permit, and they say,you can't build anything on this
plot of land because there is ahistoric easement on this
property. That the churchleadership at some point in
time, decades previously, gavethe SHPO a perpetual easement
saying they would never build onthis land because they were
(41:05):
going to get however much moneyfrom the SHPO for a grant or
something like that.
And so she had to go back to thechurch and say, I'm sorry, you
can't build here because youhave this easement, but you also
owe me tens of thousands ofdollars because I already did
this work. And so it's like thatfriction between, I know you
can't do what you wanted to do,but I did the work from a design
(41:25):
standpoint, so now you owe memoney. But then it's like, well,
how are we gonna pay you if wecan't raise money for capital
improvements we can't do? So itwas just kind of like that
friction.
Ryan Abendroth (41:34):
Page 22, yeah. Exactly. It's a toughie.
Zack Semke (41:37):
And here, reimaginer Ranger Penny asks Nikita about
how she advocates for energyefficiency within the context of
historic preservation work.
Rainger Pinney (41:49):
I'm sure that you sometimes will get some
pushback and it feels likeyou're in a really unique
position of being an advocatefor both high performance and
preservation. And I'm sure thatthere are choices, hard choices
that need to be made sometimes.And there's some preservation
(42:10):
purists that I'm sure would bereally resistant to changing
envelope details and having tobuild up walls from either the
inside or the outside. Just kindof curious what your pitch for
energy efficiency is in some ofthese buildings.
Nakita Reed (42:27):
Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great question. Because
you're right. There are somepreservationists who don't buy
the idea that sustainability andpreservation go hand in hand.
Same way there are some somesustainability folks who don't
buy it from a preservation sideeither. So it's interesting
because there are some peoplewho really care about, well,
what's the mortar on thebuilding? I just want the mortar
to be repaired and that needs tobe that's all I care about. But
(42:50):
from a broader preservationstandpoint, being good stewards
of buildings means keepingpeople in the buildings and
keeping people caring about thebuildings. Because once a
building is no longer cared foror upkept, that's when all of
the bad things start to happenbecause people stop doing
repairs, the roof starts toleak, water gets in, you know,
(43:11):
it's not secure anymore,vandalism starts to happen, and
then it becomes a place that ifno one cares about, then it
just, it's going to fall apart.
And so being able to keep peoplecomfortable in a building is a
great way to be a good stewardfor the building, which is going
to in the long run, keep thebuilding preserved and carried
forward. And so oftentimes whenI am talking to, I lovingly call
(43:33):
my preservation purist nerds,and I'm one of them sometimes.
I'm like, all right, get it. Allright, nerds. So this is what
we're gonna do.
It's very much, we need toactually think holistically
about the building becauseotherwise we're gonna miss the
forest from the trees. And soit's funny because I'm just a
total nerd because both mypreservation folks and also my
(43:56):
pass house folks, it's like heynerds what's going on like we're
very much nerdy on all this soit's like are we talking about
building science are we talkingabout the mortar are we talking
about what kind of plaster is itso it's just being able to find
the different things to nerd outand being able to find the
different things that peoplecare about and are passionate
about to be able to get them tobe open to that conversation is
(44:17):
a lot of talking.
Ryan Abendroth (44:19):
By the way, I think you just hit a bit of a
sweet spot in that conversation,though, because I think and it
it reminds me so so often of ofof the RS groups talk at one
point. We're starting at theend. They were talking about it
from a chemical mechanicalperspective, but I think it also
works in in this one whereyou're talking about a use
perspective. And, yeah, if theend users if it doesn't have an
(44:41):
end user, we're doomed. Youknow, there's only so many
truly, beautifully, historicallypreserved buildings that don't
have a real use because they'reuncomfortable or or aren't set
up well or the the rooms aren'tthe way people work or live
anymore.
Right. That we need. I mean, weneed a few of them maybe, but
(45:02):
but you're you're really in myin my mind, just I wrote it down
here. You've that that's a sweetspot right there. That's that's
the place to start theconversation.
Right. If you don't do this, andthe building becomes less
useful, all of a sudden, thisbuilding's in in danger,
forgetting all about historicpreservation.
Nakita Reed (45:21):
Right, exactly.
Zack Semke (45:23):
In our last clip for today's episode, we hear from
Beth Campbell again. Now, caseyou didn't know, an incredibly
exciting boom in Passive Houseis underway in Massachusetts,
spurred on by a policy frameworkof incentives and code. Beth
shares the numbers they'reseeing right now.
Beth Campbell (45:40):
So within this massive pipeline that we have
going on in Massachusetts rightnow, we have just an enormous
number of projects that are inthe works. So we've got around
2,000 certified units. So mostof these are permanent units,
some of them are single familyhomes, but mainly multifamily.
(46:01):
We've got 5,000 that have beendesign certified, those are well
into the pipeline. We've gotanother 8,000 registered units
meaning that this is money thatpeople have paid to get these
projects registered, so we feelpretty confident that they're in
design now.
And then there's another 21,000that have been kind of
preliminarily reviewed. So over30,000 units of primarily
(46:27):
multifamily passive houseprojects that are in the
pipeline right now that aim toget certified. And essentially,
we've got about a third of thepopulation of Massachusetts has
opted in to these specializedcodes areas that require passive
house certification for acertificate of occupancy
(46:49):
essentially. So we've got a lotcoming down the pipeline. So
that's why Massachusetts is sofocused and making sure we've
got a lot of really greatopportunities out there for
folks to get certified as CPHCsor Ds or take builder or
tradesperson certificationcourses.
There's going to be a lot ofpeople that don't take those
(47:11):
full certifications that stillneed education. And so that's
where our target focus is.
Zack Semke (47:19):
I had the honor of visiting Boston a couple of
weeks ago to deliver the keynoteaddress at Passive House
Massachusetts twenty twenty fivePassive House Symposium. During
my visit there, I learned thatBeth's numbers have been updated
to 35,000 units being in thepipeline now. If all were built,
that would amount to somewherebetween thirty and thirty five
(47:39):
million square feet of passivehouse and passive building
projects in just one state. Forcontext, The entire US has about
12,000,000 square feet ofcertified passive projects built
to date. So Massachusetts iscreating a hockey stick of
adoption of Passive House forthe entire country.
Incredibly exciting. On thatnote, I hope these snippets of
(48:02):
our experts in residence in TheCollective have piqued You can
dive into the full replays ofthese conversations all
available in the Collective. Andif you're not yet a member of
the Collective, we'd love tohave you join us. You'll get
direct access to experts andpeers who are on the same
journey with buildings,resilience, and climate. Learn
more at reimaginebuildings.com.
Speaking of members, a warmwelcome to our newest
(48:24):
Reimaginers. Kristen Bailey,Scott Drennan, Aaron Sourhoff,
Carrie Beer, Liam Smedley, KevinStack, Laura Blau, Benoit
Bemenu, Gio Beltran, MarkGranin, Jenin Pertslinger,
Joseph Martin, Susan Blumquist,Rebecca Griffith, Tamiya
Sarkozy, Jane Sanders, MatthewRichardson, Peter Reagor, and
(48:45):
Jake Bales. With that, thanksfor listening to this fourteenth
episode of the Reimagine Edit, aproduction of the Passive House
podcast by Passive HouseAccelerator. It's a privilege to
bring these conversations fromthe Reimagined Buildings
Collective into the open. Eachtime we share what we're
learning and take the time toreally listen, we sharpen our
(49:06):
practice together.
None of this work happens inisolation. We're learning
alongside one another, buildingas we go, and gradually finding
clearer footing toward thefuture we're trying to create.
So thanks for being part of thisongoing experiment in
reimagining buildings. And ifyou're not yet part of the
collective and you're curious,check it out. We'd love for you
to join us.
With that, have a great coupleof weeks. We'll be back soon
(49:29):
with another episode of theReimagine Edit.
I think that's my number one thing is that we've
got to make these projects fun.Whether your idea of fun is like
a steep learning curve like mineis kind of a sick concept of
what fun is, but we've we'vegotta have that engagement. You
know? We've gotta have somereason why people are are coming
to do the thing that's a littlebit harder, you know, with when
(00:23):
it's it's our first time. SoYeah.
Let's have some fun while we'redelivering passive houses. And
then the whole rest of everybodywill jump in.
Zack Semke (00:33):
Hello, and welcome to the Reimagine Edit, a special
series of the Passive Housepodcast that shares curated
insights from the conversationshappening in the Reimagine
Buildings Collective, ourmembership community, where we
bring together climate consciousbuilders, designers, and change
makers to share lessons, levelup our work, and build the
(00:53):
networks we need to thrive. Inthis episode 14, we'll hear from
Beth Campbell, Ryan Abendroth,Mike Fowler, Kevin Brennan, Kara
Hagerty Wilson, Nikita Reid, andMichael Ingui. I'm Zach Semke,
director of Passive HouseAccelerator and host of the
Reimagine Buildings Collective,and thanks for joining me. Our
(01:14):
first clip is a question fromMike, a member of the Reimagined
Buildings Collective of RyanAbendroth, an expert in
residence in the collective.Ryan is the former certification
manager at Fias and founder andprincipal of Passive Energy
Designs.
Here, Mike asks Ryan about howto manage the very high humidity
in places like Houston.
Mike (01:37):
One of the things, you know, the Zender system in, I
keep wondering how to deal withthe really high humidity come in
Houston, Texas. And a goodpercentage of the summer during
the day, you're looking atseventy, eighty, 90% humidity.
So you're sucking in that highhumidity and you're blowing out
(01:57):
the dryer from the inside thehouse. You know, it's
transferring some of thathumidity is getting brought back
into the house. I don't knownumbers wise as to how much is
it.
I don't, I guess there's no wayaround it. If you want to
ventilate, you just gotta put upwith the high humidity air
(02:17):
coming in.
Ryan Abendroth (02:19):
Yeah. So a couple notes. One, my business
partner that I found a BuildZerowith lives in Houston. So we do
have some, you know, firsthandexperience of like that sort of
climate. In most of ourresidential projects there, I
feel like we are just saying,you know, it's, it's okay.
(02:39):
Like we're going to do thatventilation just like we would
maybe anywhere else for the mostpart and have then for sure a
dedicated dehumidificationsystem that is going to be
dehumidifying that space or thathouse, but it doesn't need to be
necessarily connected to oneanother. I think this is the
(03:01):
question. I've done some otherprojects with some engineers,
like the first commercialpassive house, I think it was
actually the first nonresidential passive house, was
in Kansas in 2012. And theengine, it was about 1,200 ish
square feet, but it was aclassroom. And it also had a
(03:22):
glass facade on the south with atrommel and like a little bit of
western glass too.
It had a big overhang, but sothere was a lot of solar gain.
And then I put into Wolfie like,you know, like four people or
something, you know, it's like alittle office thing, but it was
actually a classroom. And soaccording to the code, the
(03:43):
occupancy was 44 people. And ifyou put the humidity load even
of Kansas into that building,plus the, you know, glass wall
facade, plus 44 people in a1,200 square foot building,
engineer designed this thing tohave three, you know, ducted
(04:04):
mini splits and like all like18,000 or something BTUs per
hour, where Wolfie's telling youor, you know, PHP, I think back
then, that it's like 5,000, youknow, BTUs or something per
hour. But when you add the 44people in, of course, it goes
way up.
I bring this story up becausethat project, the engineer did
(04:27):
not feel comfortable putting theamount of ventilation air for 44
people into that space withoutdehumidifying it. So the ERV in
that project runs into the backof the air handler and uses the
air handler for distribution, sothat it can do, you know, some
(04:51):
dehumidification and things. Idon't know that you need to go
to that route because at thenormal residential occupancy, I
think you can
just dump ventilation air into a room. And
then that gets picked up by yourmechanical system, which should
include, you know, kind of
a whole home dehumidifier. I don't know that
(05:13):
you need to precondition it, ifthat makes sense.
Mike (05:15):
Yeah. It's gonna be a pair of, series seven, water
furnaces, which can ramp waydown and pull a lot of humidity
out, I think.
Ryan Abendroth (05:24):
So you probably are you using that for
distribution, like you'rerunning your ventilation into
that air handler, into that ductsystem?
Mike (05:33):
Wasn't planning that. The initial plan was just
traditional Zender layout, youknow, with a individual
locations in eight differentrooms
Ryan Abendroth (05:44):
Yeah.
Mike (05:45):
For intake and exhaust.
Ryan Abendroth (05:48):
And so generally, I do think that's,
like, the best way to go aboutit. Because if you run it into
the air handler according to,like, the, you know, FIES
guidelines, you also need to runthe air handler at minimum speed
all the time. And that fanenergy is also not great in a
really hot climate.
Mike (06:08):
Right.
Ryan Abendroth (06:09):
And so you you generally would want to avoid
that. However, I have a projectthat I worked on here in Saint
Louis that is geothermal and hasa zinder and has a, like, ultra
air Santa Fe dehumidifier on it.And they are all running through
the same duct system. Andthey're running that air handler
(06:29):
all the time to make sure thatthey're getting that
distribution throughout thewhole building. I don't know
that that's optimal, but thathouse still performs extremely
well.
Zack Semke (06:42):
Next up, Michael Ingui, founder of Passive House
Accelerator, and Mike Fowler,sustainability integration
leader at Methune, discuss thepassive survivability of
buildings, particularly duringheat waves. Mike draws on an
example that hits close to homequite literally, and that he's
talking about extremes in ourshared hometown of Seattle.
Mike Fowler (07:04):
You'd rather survive and be uncomfortable
rather than the alternative.
Michael Ingui (07:08):
Yeah. And I I think for me, the question
really also becomes, does itreally even make sense to design
for even more than that? Itprobably that you you probably
have to go to such extrememeasures.
Mike Fowler (07:19):
Yeah. And I think that's a great question because,
you know, we did that. Our focuswas just on, okay. We've got an
existing building stock. Whathappens when in this existing
building stock when we have anextreme heat wave?
And so none of that answeredlike, okay. What if we buy all
the brand new passive houseapartment building? What does
that how did that how does thatdo? So that was kind of a
question that was kindalingering in my mind. And the
(07:41):
next study we did in house,Claire McConnell was our
building energy modeling.
Claire is Claire is the actualperson doing all the modeling,
so I'm really standing on hershoulders and her work and skill
to do modeling. I I am thefortunate one to get to be a
spokesperson about this. Yeah.So we had a project and it was
in the California Bay Area. Andin twenty twenty two, September,
there was a giant heat wave thathit there.
(08:04):
And the owner of that building,has a very vulnerable population
that this apartment building wasgonna be built for. And they're
like, should we air condition?You know? And so we're like,
let's study it. You know?
And they were looking at, youknow, potentially, you know? And
so one of the things we proposedwas like, hey, we can make this
a passive house Mhmm. Project.And so, like, we figured out
what is, you know, runningthrough, you know? And for me
(08:26):
and like, Skyler and I think itwas Dylan, the two of them
created a passive PHPPdashboard, and I use that a ton
still.
Just sort of as as a conceptschematic, like, do we make sure
we got it we've got it sort ofdialed in so that, you know,
yeah, it might change everylittle bit, but it's basically a
we know it. I have confidencethat this is a passive house
envelope. Mhmm. And so we we wedid model that. And the and the
(08:51):
thing was, you know, at thatpoint at that heat wave also,
there was a ton of wildfiresmoke around.
And so it's like that was thequestion of, okay. Well, it's
it's that heat wave, was uppernineties. 100, a 104 was the
peak temperature. And I'm like,okay. Well, that's kind of like
if we get another heat wave inSeattle, Western Washington, a
104 is probably gonna be whereit is.
(09:13):
It's you know, might not be a108. Like, it was in the heat
dome, but, you know, at a placethat had only touched a 100,
like, twice in its history.
Michael Ingui (09:22):
Mhmm.
Mike Fowler (09:23):
You know, that's this is a good model. And I
also, at that point, now hadbalance heat recovery
ventilation, in multifamilyapartments in the Washington
code. And, you know, this is athis is a bonus chance to sort
of test that. Okay. If we ranyou know?
Ryan Abendroth (09:37):
It's huge.
Mike Fowler (09:37):
Yeah. 104 degrees outside. What we found out, you
know, similar thing. Californiacode, if you couldn't keep the
sun out or you couldn't openyour windows at night,
temperatures should climb up toa 120 degrees, which is also in
that basically extreme dangerquality. You know, in
California, the nights were coolenough, but if you were code
minimum, you could open yourwindows, the interior
(09:59):
temperature was 94 degrees.
And we're like, okay. Well,what's the passive house
envelope do? And it took it from94 down to 86 degrees.
Ryan Abendroth (10:05):
That's by itself. I mean, that's massive.
Mike Fowler (10:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And then we're like, okay.
Fantastic. We see, you know,passive house in a 104 degree
heat wave.
No power. You could ride throughit and not cry climb into that
extreme extreme caution levelabove 90. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Well, there's also wildfiresmoke. So let's say we you can't
you really don't wanna open yourwindows. You know? You don't
want to you know? That becauseyou have to make the choice of,
(10:30):
do I open my windows at night tocool off a little bit to let in
all this wildfire smoke that'sreally, really harmful to our
health?
But with a Passive House withheat recovery ventilation,
filtered air, you can closethose windows, use the HRV
system. And so instead of 86degrees, it was 87 with the HRV
running. So it was a very goodconfirmation that passive house
(10:53):
enclosures do work. And I'llemphasize right now that, you
know, I say that everything I'vebeen talking about so far,
applies from, let's say, theRocky Mountains West because
it's you know, we we live in ourour Western US climate doesn't
have a lot of humidity. But youwere think you were bringing up
a point, Michael, about there'sa there's extremes.
And do we do do we design forextremes, or do we design for
(11:15):
something sort of like that andsort of keep our fingers
crossed?
Ryan Abendroth (11:18):
Yeah. I
Mike Fowler (11:18):
think what Passive House is doing for us is by
having that focus be on lowloads and and then closure
first, designing to that givesus that buffer or insurance
piece. So have we to design forthe extreme. We're just
designing for everyday comfortand health. If we design for
that, that gives us a buffer tosort of ride through an extreme
(11:42):
piece without having to spend alot of extra cost or saying,
well, I I wanted to stay we'renot trying to keep it below 80.
We're low.
We're saying if it's an extremeheat time and there's no power,
we can go through a few days ofit being 80 degrees inside. But
we don't have to, like, look atour building enclosures and go
even more excessive. It's stillthe fundamentals. Exterior
(12:04):
shading works the best. We wannakeep the sun from coming in and
heating our space and havingability to have a little bit of
if we've got the ability to coolfreely at night, do it.
You know? And then and so Ithink that's where I think
Passive House is helping us justby designing a Passive House
that is giving us more of a,call it, an insurance policy for
better better words.
Zack Semke (12:24):
Now let's pivot to Michael's conversation with
Kevin Brennan, air tightness andinsulation expert at Brennan and
Brennan, longtime cohost ofPassive House Accelerator Live,
and now a member of the Sourcetwo thousand fifty team. Kevin
shares how he diagnoses whatneeds to happen first in
retrofits.
Ryan Abendroth (12:41):
What do you look because it sounds like before
you even get the passive house,you're looking at other
weatherization items first.Because everybody asks, well,
where do you start? But what areyou looking at when you're
looking at an existingbrownstone or an existing
freestanding house?
So just like as if you were going to your
doctor, you'd have a generalconversation about how do you
(13:02):
feel? What's your biggestconcern? Why are you here today?
Start up that conversation aboutwhy we're what your plans are
for the building and theretrofit, other big needs, big
problems in the in the building,the house moisture. Is it is it
too cold?
Is it too hot? And then the nextlevel would be do a blow a door,
find out how leaky the buildingis, and then assess the systems.
(13:23):
And then based on what theclient's needs are and plans
are, then figuring out asolution for each one of those
problems. Are you gutting thetop floor and you're gonna have
new roof space? Are you firingit down?
Are you removing the front wallfrom the inside or is this an
exterior renovation? And thenjust making those plans,
(13:44):
anything you touch, just do itto the best that you can afford
and you have the ability and youdon't really, you wanna sequence
it, right? So you don't have todo it twice. That's kind of my
advice always. And then stickwith the BPI method of test in,
test out and do no harm.
So like, the old school way ofdoing a blow a door test before
(14:05):
and after checking yourcombustion appliances to make
sure you didn't make the housedangerous is something that
should be done. It's mandated bymost energy efficiency programs,
but and then in our projectsthat we're working on the
brownstones, we're eliminatingmost of those devices, the
(14:26):
domestic hot water heaterappliance or the furnace or the
boiler. So we are makingbuildings safer just in in the
whole big picture of it. Butwhen you're planning your
renovations, just do it smart.You don't wanna have a, you
know, a backdrafted hot hotwater heater leads to somebody
getting hurt, but it's it'sweird stuff like that.
You just gotta watch out for.
Zack Semke (14:46):
Next up, Skye, a reimaginer, asks Kara Hagerty
Wilson of Onion FlatsArchitecture about how she
navigates uncertainty and guidesclients through it. A couple of
quick notes. In the clip, you'llhear Kara reference the number
point zero six, which refers toPHEUS's air tightness threshold
and air permeance of 0.06 cubicfeet per minute per square foot
(15:11):
of enclosure area at 50 Pascalsof pressure. Kara also mentions
Birdo, which is Boston'sBuilding Emissions Reduction and
Disclosure Ordinance.
Michael Ingui (15:24):
I was curious also with so much unknown until
you're able to do investigatorydemo and like get a more
thorough kind of forensicevaluation of the existing. How
are you dealing with that bothon the client's understanding of
the overall budget and justhaving to do revisions across
(15:46):
the different phases. Yeah. I'llsay that the surprises we found
when we think of Hano Homes, theproject, the smaller project we
presented, the surprise wasn'tanything we had to change. It
was more something that affectedour air sealing, our ability to
get as airtight as we wanted.
So it didn't make for a change.We had to change our
(16:11):
perspective, I guess, on what isthe solution. We're not going to
get to 0.06 for that project. Soinstead, we're going to get to
0.26, whatever it was, and stillbe really happy about it. I
think there's these projectsthat we haven't yet encountered
something that duringconstruction was like system
altering or envelope altering oranything like that.
(16:33):
It's been more like, oh, theydidn't seal XYZ a hundred years
ago. Of course, didn't. Youknow, it's taking a taking a
small hit here and there andkind of pivoting. And then that
you and the client are alignedon the goals that are less, I
guess, quantitative and moreLike, how are you ensuring that
(16:54):
you're meeting the deliverableexpectations on the client end
of what they're receiving withthis whole process and that it's
worth the value to them? So someof the clients, the ones in
Boston in particular are upagainst the Virto ordinance.
So they're seeking todrastically reduce their energy
consumption on-site. And a lotof their financing will be tied
(17:14):
to a percentage reductionoverall. The efforts we're
putting forth tend to do a lotmore than that percentage as a
baseline. So we've not yetencountered something that made
us think that we weren't goingto hit those numbers quite yet.
That's not been something that'scome up yet.
Our clients have been reallyinvolved throughout the entire
(17:38):
processes and they're on everycall. They know every player.
They're asking all the rightquestions all the time and
they're very well educated on ittoo. So it's not like we have to
teach them on it. They alreadyknow this stuff.
So they're keeping good tabs.Amazing.
Zack Semke (17:54):
Here, Mary James, Passive House Accelerator's
senior editor, asks Cara aboutstriking a balance with
standardization in off-siteconstruction.
Mary James (18:05):
I wanna go back for a minute to the window size
being different on differentfloors. And I just wondered how
that affects the I mean, one ofthe advantages of off-site
construction I had thought was,you know, that you're producing
the same thing over and overagain. But the panel sizes must
(18:27):
have to be adjusted if thewindow sizes are different on
different floors. Yes?
Michael Ingui (18:32):
So the overall panel width will be whatever
they'd like it to be withintheir what they can span, what
they can deal with, what theycan maneuver. And then so at
Salem, the the windows aretypically they're not always in
the middle of the panel. It'd benice if they were. But to your
point, it's because the windowsare different per floor, it does
(18:55):
mean that, like, the panelwindow sill height dimension is
different for Floor 2. So it'snot like a cookie cutter
situation.
It's a little bit moreprioritized for the existing
conditions.
Mary James (19:11):
I had thought that one of the cost advantages of
using a panelized approach wasthe consistency of the panels
that you're producing, that arebeing manufactured. But I guess
maybe it doesn't matter so muchbecause they're all being
designed.
Michael Ingui (19:29):
They're all being designed. I think here where it
helps like in new construction,that's that's totally valid that
there's cost savings and beingable to, like, get a module and
build it a 100 times and installit. Here, because we're dealing
with having to kind of mergewith existing conditions, we
could lose out on thatopportunity a little bit, But we
(19:52):
still get to have reallyconsistent air sealing details
because it's happening off-site.We get QAQC on the product
that's happening off-site. Andthen, general, we couldn't build
Salem without a panel.
It's just we can't physicallyget somebody to site build that
while there's ducks in the way.Like, it it kinda had to be a
(20:14):
panelized solution if we weregonna take the systems outboard.
Zack Semke (20:19):
Next is an exchange between Karen, a reimaginer, and
Beth Campbell, Education ProgramDirector of Passive House
Massachusetts. Beth recentlycompleted interviews with over
40 Passive House builders,designers, tradespeople, and
developers Massachusetts andpackage their collective
insights into the excellentreport Cost Efficient Passive
House Delivery, coauthored withExecutive Director Alexander
(20:42):
Gard Murray. In their exchange,which includes comments from
Michael Ingui as well, Bethdives into the power of the
mockup to influence practice inthe field.
Karin (20:52):
Just to briefly summarize where I started with this is I
was working on a newconstruction, 80 unit, eight
story building here in Brooklyn,where they were doing a
panelized exterior. I went inadvance to New Jersey to look at
how they were putting the panelstogether since I was the energy
rater on the job. My job was todo the ENERGY STAR checklists,
(21:17):
the thermal checklists, also todo testing and verification on
any ductwork, which they didn'thave, but the apartment air
tightness. So from the beginningit looked like they had air
tightness handled very well, butwith the PTACs, the areas of the
PTACs which I kept warning themabout, I was fortunate enough to
(21:39):
be on this job early enough tokeep reminding them of all of
the things to look for for airtightness, and especially the
PTAC areas, but they were new tothis and this is really actually
the basis of my question. Sohere I am, I'm coming in, I'm
(21:59):
looking over their details, so Ihave to always decide am I the
policeman, am I the educator, amI the how do I get them on
board?
This really got critical. Imean, in most cases people do
listen to me, we go throughexamples and things, but when we
got to testing the apartments,it was clear that a lot of it
(22:22):
hadn't sunk in. And long storyshort, we went back and forth.
It took about six or sevenvisits to some of the same
apartments before they listenedto me and took the covers off
the PTACs and really took aclose look at what had been
going on there. My question-Karen,
Beth Campbell (22:44):
just to be clear so that everybody knows what
we're talking about right now,we're talking about the HVAC
units that go into the windowopening, correct, that do
heating and cooling? Yes.Presume they're heat pumps? Yes.
Yes.
Everybody here can imagine howyou might have air leakage
issues because you've got both awindow going into that opening
(23:05):
as well as the HVAC equipment,which may not be designed to be
particularly airtight, and thenthe installation also matters a
lot. Is that Yes,
Karin (23:15):
the problem was that obviously these P TACs created
penetrations in these reallynicely tightly sealed panels. So
the panels themselves were notan issue, the windows themselves
were not an issue, it was wherethey had failed to seal the
openings.
Beth Campbell (23:34):
And is your question more about like good
industry practices for how toseal these or more so about how
you get people to listen to youas
Karin (23:44):
the perpetrator? Because last time you made some very
interesting comments aboutworking with the trades people.
And I usually come in trying toeducate them at the beginning
and then trying to work withthem. There have been times
where I have compromised onthings that maybe I shouldn't
have quite passed on. On aprevious project, actually, got
(24:05):
into a back and forth with thearchitect who didn't understand
what was going on.
Okay.
Beth Campbell (24:09):
So I've got two I've got two thoughts for you
right off the bat, and maybethese are already things that
that you're talking about. Butnumber one, did you guys do a
mock up first before They we
Karin (24:19):
not. Were all
Beth Campbell (24:21):
sometimes it's not in the budget, sometimes
it's really hard to convey theimportance of how much money a
mock up can save a project. Butespecially if the developer is
not used to it, whatever, itmight not be in the budget. But
that's the that's the number onego to that I'm hearing from
teams is, like, without a mockup, we're screwed. You know? And
(24:42):
a mock up doesn't need to be astand alone because sometimes
there's just not budget forthat.
But especially with an ENERGYSTAR project where you've got
unit compartmentalizationalready, so you have some level
of air tightness that you'redealing with in your case, using
one of those apartment units asa proxy for whole building
(25:03):
airtightness can be a reallyuseful tactic. And that might be
something that again, how muchleverage do you have as the
consultant coming in? Probably,it's going to depend a lot on
the team, but that's one of thebiggest recommendations that
I've been hearing is get intothat apartment, air test it
early. It might mean out ofsequence ordering and
(25:25):
procurement for the team becausethat one unit is going to need
to be if airtight drywall methodis your method for
compartmentalization air sealingin that apartment, you might
have to get some out of sequencetrades in there to get that unit
done early so that you can testit. But test as early as you
can, especially with those PTACunits, it sounds like.
(25:48):
Because you saw that. Youflagged that early. Nobody paid
attention to you. So I guess myother question for you is around
incentive money. Is thereincentive money on the table for
the developer that if they missEnergy Star on this, are they
losing a bunch of money on theproject?
Because that's another way thatyou can you've got to talk
money. You don't talk thebenefits of air sealing or
(26:12):
something. And I think youprobably already know that. But
that's the only way to getpeople to listen to you is
callbacks, making sure thatstuff is in subcontractor
trades, that who ends up holdingthe bag if you don't meet these
targets. If somebody knows thatthey have financial risk on the
line, they're going to listen alot more.
But as a third party, it can bereally hard to leverage your
(26:35):
power over those subcontracts,over mock ups, or over those
incentives.
Ryan Abendroth (26:41):
Yeah. I would also say, just to echo it, time
and money. It is truly amazingto me how quickly the team can
do things after the mock Yeah.And also it's always amazing to
me because some of the mockupswe do and some of the stuff we
do, I'm so lucky. Very oftenI've got Kevin Brennan on my job
(27:04):
and John Mitchell or Ed May,and, and we're doing a townhouse
and we're doing a mockup forsomething I've already done
before.
Do you know how many times wechange how we install it? Yeah.
It's hilarious. And, becauseit's, you know, that team wants
to use this tape or that productor this thing, or, oh, hey,
because of the condition of thiswall, we want to do one thing.
(27:24):
And then they all decide, andthen like a couple days later,
everything's installedperfectly, not reinstalled.
It's just amazing to me how muchtime, which in my world is worth
more than anything in theuniverse, and not having to go
backwards. Time and then, sorry,risk. I'm right there with you.
(27:45):
So yeah, I think the mockup's agood one.
Karin (27:49):
Well, one thing I'll say is that I usually end up on jobs
way after contracts are signed.So even though if you go to my
website, you'll see I have awhole page of what I advise
developers to do, one of them isto make sure it's in the
contract. If I'm on the job andI find an issue that it's not in
anybody's contract, I just backoff and I let them work it out
(28:12):
before I go forward with thejob, which happened on another
big job. But the thing in thisparticular case, there was a
junior person in charge of theproject at this point who didn't
have a lot of authority and themain contractor was out sick.
(28:35):
And so he ended up making abunch of decisions.
He kept wanting to retest thingsand test them this way and test
them that way. And looking innot the places where I was
saying. So without coming acrossas a police person, I've been
trying to look for ways to getthe ideas across to people
(28:57):
earlier so that they listen tome earlier because I'm usually
just an asterisk on the listuntil we start testing and
something fails.
Beth Campbell (29:05):
Right, yep. And it sounds like you're already
doing it. In this case,sometimes your hands are tied,
but it's really that earlycommunication with the developer
And showing them, you know, ifyou can if you can put together
even a simple spreadsheet ofcost benefit to the developer to
have you come in early and havesome money in there for for mock
(29:28):
up, making sure that thatdoesn't get VE'd out, for
example. If you if you have anyanything where you can speak the
financial language of thedeveloper, even if, again, if
it's a simple spreadsheetshowing, like, hey. This is my
cost to come in early, and thisis how much projected savings
you're going to have to have mecome in early versus stepping in
(29:49):
late and now trying to fixproblems.
If you can show that in blackand white and then translate
what you're saying into numbers,even if they're, you know, broad
examples of numbers, they don'thave to be super accurate. They
can be order of magnitudenumbers even. That can be a
(30:10):
piece to have people's ears perkup. Really what I'm hearing from
teams is that paying that extraamount for the consultants to
come in early it pays for itselfin almost all cases.
Zack Semke (30:25):
And speaking of influencing and guiding practice
in the field, Kevin Brennan hasa lot to share. Here, Michael
prompts Kevin about thecontractor kickoff meeting.
Ryan Abendroth (30:36):
But one of my favorites, which came from you,
is the contractor kickoff, wherethat kickoff meeting with the
subs, just describe that,describe the importance of it.
Also, I'd I'd say, you know, foranybody who's on this call who
who needs to do one, describe tothem how to do one, in your in
(30:57):
your opinion, do do do it well.
My inspiration for it was just getting everyone
on the same page and setting thestandard of the project. So
coming from the GC, thearchitect, and the owners that
everyone working on the projectneeds to know the rules of the
game. You know, like, it's adifferent type of project. It's
not standard construction. Youcan't just make a hole anywhere
(31:17):
you want.
You you need to ask permission,and is this okay? I'm and I kind
of mimic that training based,not like opportunity or kind of
like introduction to the team.This way we set the hierarchy,
right? The GC's in charge, thearchitects over construction
administration's overseeingeveryone. And then who are the
key players on the project?
(31:38):
The plumber, the electrician,the insulator, the carpenter,
just making sure they all workwell together and explaining
what the goals of the projectare. This way, even though
you're an electrician, like Idon't touch outside walls or,
you know, like like I'm just anelectrician and it's like, look,
you can't you you I wouldn'truin your work. Don't ruin my
work. And then I wouldn't putholes. I wouldn't cut your I
(31:59):
wouldn't cut your electricalwires and not tell you, please
don't do that to my air batteryor my installation.
And I mimic the training basedkinda like on like a safety
training, like a safetyorientation of like, this is the
project, these are the rules,this is what it is. And then a
little bit of show and tell kindof like, these are the products
we're gonna use. This is how youair seal, not easy, right? It
(32:20):
takes some time I have to clean.And it's just creating that
level of respect on the projectfor our work, which is semi new
to old work, which is standard,and then how they all
interweave.
And then in the trades,kinesthetic learners, they like
to look, listen, and feel andtouch. And I love leaving mock
ups or kinda like drawings orways of instructing that then
(32:44):
stay on the site. And then whenyou get new people on the site,
they can be like, this is whatthis needs to look like. This is
different. This is a passivehouse.
Favorite anecdote informationwas working at one of the early
projects and it was the middleof the winter and there was no
heat on whatsoever, no temporaryAnd the painters were showing up
and they were like puttingshorts on and they would put
(33:06):
their winter clothes on to gohome. But all day, they were
working painting in theirshorts, you know, in a quiet
building. The air was good. Itwas filled with light, and it
was it's like, this isdifferent. You know?
All our other projects werefreezing. And
It was pretty wild. And not only that, but
everything, the paint was dryand everything about it was
better.
Yeah.
So you just brought up something that dawned
(33:26):
on me because I'm actuallydealing with a situation right
now where mock ups areimportant, direction is
important, and I feel like it'snot my project per se, but I'm
working on a project where thereis a little bit of time being
wasted or spent just waiting formock ups and direction. One of
the things that I guess I tookfor granted and still do is that
(33:49):
part of our, when we do theseinitial meetings with the
contractor, we've typicallyalready met with the past files
consultant and you and others,and we know what our makeup is
of our wall and our window, andpart of what they're learning on
is that makeup. So maybe talkabout the importance of a mock
up, because I think for some ofthem, I'm remembering some of
(34:10):
our products where you didn'tknow if you're gonna use peel
and stick, or you didn't know ifyou could use tape or some
liquid applied to you know, whatwhat's your what's your
recommendation there?
Early. And then navigate what the library is or
what what potential products youcan use and narrow that down. It
can be very overwhelming for ageneral contractor that's not an
(34:31):
air barrier specialist to lookat all the air barrier products
and be like, this is the one Iwant because it's intimidating.
You kinda do what you haveaccess to, like, what does my
local lumber yard sell? Whathave I used before?
Have I purchased it before?Those kinda guide a lot of the
GC decisions, logistics andpurchasing, and then figuring
out what they are. On myprojects that I worked on, me
(34:54):
being the tester, so I knew Iwas gonna test early. I tested
my own my own stuff. Ahmad, ifthis is your project or a other
do an early mock up and test it.
So build a chamber onto it. I'vebeen pitching for years. I have
never no one's ever done itbefore, but the office, the PH
with the office, whereas everyconstruction site needs a place
(35:16):
to take a phone call in ameeting that is quiet, dust
free, and depending on whatproducts you're using, you kinda
need them to be weather safe andthat they don't freeze or dry.
So build a small little cornerof one project with one window,
build three walls onto it, maybea ceiling, use the floor,
whatever it is, put it up.That's your first run mock up.
It's a place where you'll keepeverything. You test it. You
(35:37):
know it's tight. If everythingelse looks like this, we'll be
in good shape, but you'retesting like five different
things at once. You're testingthe window to the wall airtight
connection.
You're testing your fluidapplied air barrier on the
block. You're testing yourthrough floor in connections,
and then you can take it to thenext level and have it be like a
finished mock up. Among people,clients, architects, PCs. They
(35:58):
like to know what something isgonna look like in the future.
And it kind of like builds uponconfidence, but making the blow
a door or testing ability, youdon't need to send it to a
laboratory and have it tested.
You get your first window early,plus everyone likes to know,
like, was it easy to get? Was iteasy to bring in? Like, is this
(36:20):
a sample? Like, can youlogistically get me one window
in four weeks? You know, becauseif you can't get me one window
in four weeks, how are you goingget me 20 in twenty weeks?
You know?
Zack Semke (36:31):
Next, hear from Nikita Reid and her Reimagined
Design interview with Michael.Nikita is Associate Principal at
Quinn Evans and host of thepodcast Tangible Remnants. Here,
Michael asks her how sheintegrates architecture,
preservation, and highperformance building design,
priorities that are sometimesviewed as working at cross
purposes. Incorrectly viewed,Nikita would point out.
Ryan Abendroth (36:55):
How do you deal with that? Know you've got two
loves, I guess three.Architecture preservation, you
might join into one, and thenhigh performance. Yes. You're
constantly kind of marrying thethree, I guess.
Nakita Reed (37:09):
Yeah. And a lot of it is a lot of conversations.
And so I know there aresometimes that some architects,
they view like the statehistoric preservation officer or
the various regulatory bodies asadversaries as opposed to
collaborators and partners. Soon all of our projects, I am
often making sure that we arehaving these conversations early
(37:31):
and often with the variousapproval entities to let them
know this is what we'replanning, here's what we would
like to do, where are theregaps, where it's potential, what
could potentially be a holdup orthat sort of thing. And so a lot
of times when we're able to notonly help communicate what we
want to do, but also helpeducate the different policy
makers and even the regulatoryagencies on what we're trying to
(37:54):
do, that helps.
Because I found that, surprise,surprise, many of the people
enforcing policy aren't asfamiliar with the realities that
we're facing in the day to day.And so being able to bring them
along during the process beforethey just have to be like,
alright, I have ten days toapprove or deny this. I'm not
(38:16):
familiar with what this is.Denied. Come back with more
information, that sort of thing.
So having those types ofconversations early and often,
and also just developing therapport with them so that
they're familiar. Like, the thepermit official in Baltimore
knows me. The SHPO knows me. Soit's it's one of those things
where being able to have thoseconversations helps build that
relationship and that trust. Sothey also know that I'm not
(38:39):
trying to get over on them.
I'm not trying to skirt theintent of the code or the law or
the standard, but really tryingto be creative and solve these
problems.
Zack Semke (38:48):
In this clip, we hear Nikita share her advice to
architects who are beginningtheir first historic project.
Nakita Reed (38:54):
It's also funny because the number of architects
who will come to me after theyhave taken on a historic
preservation project, only torealize that, oh, there's more,
there's actual laws andstandards they have to follow on
this project. Yeah, it's not ahobby. Like, all right, what did
you get into? How can I help youunravel this and the approvals
(39:16):
you need to do? Because I thinkthat's the other thing where a
lot of times people get veryupset or they feel like
preservation is very hard oradaptive reuse is so difficult,
but really it's just they're notfamiliar with the system and the
approvals.
And so they do things in thewrong order, and that holds up a
bunch of things.
Ryan Abendroth (39:33):
Oh, sequencing. Will say, on historic
preservation, it wasn't going tobe one of my questions, but now
it is. Because you're right,sequencing. It becomes that much
more important when it's ahistoric restoration, first of
all. But if you're dealing witha certifying body, when you're
(39:56):
dealing with preservation, eventhat much more important.
So maybe talk a little bit aboutthat.
Nakita Reed (40:00):
Yes. And part of it also is just knowing where to
check to prevent some of thepitfalls. And I know most of you
are architects on the call. Thebiggest nugget I'll give you if
you're working on a historicbuilding is to double check to
see if there's an easement onthe property before you start
doing anything. One of thehorror stories that I heard when
I was first starting out in mycareer was that there was an
(40:22):
architect who was really wellknown, and she decided to do
some work for historically blackchurch in the Eastern Shore Of
Maryland.
And she was like, oh, they havethis great big parcel of land
right next to the building, theycould do a fantastic addition.
The church was like, this soundsgreat, we wanna do the addition.
Yes, please design this andlet's go. She designs it, she
(40:44):
submits it to the buildingpermit office to be able to get
a building permit, and they say,you can't build anything on this
plot of land because there is ahistoric easement on this
property. That the churchleadership at some point in
time, decades previously, gavethe SHPO a perpetual easement
saying they would never build onthis land because they were
(41:05):
going to get however much moneyfrom the SHPO for a grant or
something like that.
And so she had to go back to thechurch and say, I'm sorry, you
can't build here because youhave this easement, but you also
owe me tens of thousands ofdollars because I already did
this work. And so it's like thatfriction between, I know you
can't do what you wanted to do,but I did the work from a design
(41:25):
standpoint, so now you owe memoney. But then it's like, well,
how are we gonna pay you if wecan't raise money for capital
improvements we can't do? So itwas just kind of like that
friction.
Ryan Abendroth (41:34):
Page 22, yeah. Exactly. It's a toughie.
Zack Semke (41:37):
And here, reimaginer Ranger Penny asks Nikita about
how she advocates for energyefficiency within the context of
historic preservation work.
Rainger Pinney (41:49):
I'm sure that you sometimes will get some
pushback and it feels likeyou're in a really unique
position of being an advocatefor both high performance and
preservation. And I'm sure thatthere are choices, hard choices
that need to be made sometimes.And there's some preservation
(42:10):
purists that I'm sure would bereally resistant to changing
envelope details and having tobuild up walls from either the
inside or the outside. Just kindof curious what your pitch for
energy efficiency is in some ofthese buildings.
Nakita Reed (42:27):
Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great question. Because
you're right. There are somepreservationists who don't buy
the idea that sustainability andpreservation go hand in hand.
Same way there are some somesustainability folks who don't
buy it from a preservation sideeither. So it's interesting
because there are some peoplewho really care about, well,
what's the mortar on thebuilding? I just want the mortar
to be repaired and that needs tobe that's all I care about. But
(42:50):
from a broader preservationstandpoint, being good stewards
of buildings means keepingpeople in the buildings and
keeping people caring about thebuildings. Because once a
building is no longer cared foror upkept, that's when all of
the bad things start to happenbecause people stop doing
repairs, the roof starts toleak, water gets in, you know,
(43:11):
it's not secure anymore,vandalism starts to happen, and
then it becomes a place that ifno one cares about, then it
just, it's going to fall apart.
And so being able to keep peoplecomfortable in a building is a
great way to be a good stewardfor the building, which is going
to in the long run, keep thebuilding preserved and carried
forward. And so oftentimes whenI am talking to, I lovingly call
(43:33):
my preservation purist nerds,and I'm one of them sometimes.
I'm like, all right, get it. Allright, nerds. So this is what
we're gonna do.
It's very much, we need toactually think holistically
about the building becauseotherwise we're gonna miss the
forest from the trees. And soit's funny because I'm just a
total nerd because both mypreservation folks and also my
(43:56):
pass house folks, it's like heynerds what's going on like we're
very much nerdy on all this soit's like are we talking about
building science are we talkingabout the mortar are we talking
about what kind of plaster is itso it's just being able to find
the different things to nerd outand being able to find the
different things that peoplecare about and are passionate
about to be able to get them tobe open to that conversation is
(44:17):
a lot of talking.
Ryan Abendroth (44:19):
By the way, I think you just hit a bit of a
sweet spot in that conversation,though, because I think and it
it reminds me so so often of ofof the RS groups talk at one
point. We're starting at theend. They were talking about it
from a chemical mechanicalperspective, but I think it also
works in in this one whereyou're talking about a use
perspective. And, yeah, if theend users if it doesn't have an
(44:41):
end user, we're doomed. Youknow, there's only so many
truly, beautifully, historicallypreserved buildings that don't
have a real use because they'reuncomfortable or or aren't set
up well or the the rooms aren'tthe way people work or live
anymore.
Right. That we need. I mean, weneed a few of them maybe, but
(45:02):
but you're you're really in myin my mind, just I wrote it down
here. You've that that's a sweetspot right there. That's that's
the place to start theconversation.
Right. If you don't do this, andthe building becomes less
useful, all of a sudden, thisbuilding's in in danger,
forgetting all about historicpreservation.
Nakita Reed (45:21):
Right, exactly.
Zack Semke (45:23):
In our last clip for today's episode, we hear from
Beth Campbell again. Now, caseyou didn't know, an incredibly
exciting boom in Passive Houseis underway in Massachusetts,
spurred on by a policy frameworkof incentives and code. Beth
shares the numbers they'reseeing right now.
Beth Campbell (45:40):
So within this massive pipeline that we have
going on in Massachusetts rightnow, we have just an enormous
number of projects that are inthe works. So we've got around
2,000 certified units. So mostof these are permanent units,
some of them are single familyhomes, but mainly multifamily.
(46:01):
We've got 5,000 that have beendesign certified, those are well
into the pipeline. We've gotanother 8,000 registered units
meaning that this is money thatpeople have paid to get these
projects registered, so we feelpretty confident that they're in
design now.
And then there's another 21,000that have been kind of
preliminarily reviewed. So over30,000 units of primarily
(46:27):
multifamily passive houseprojects that are in the
pipeline right now that aim toget certified. And essentially,
we've got about a third of thepopulation of Massachusetts has
opted in to these specializedcodes areas that require passive
house certification for acertificate of occupancy
(46:49):
essentially. So we've got a lotcoming down the pipeline. So
that's why Massachusetts is sofocused and making sure we've
got a lot of really greatopportunities out there for
folks to get certified as CPHCsor Ds or take builder or
tradesperson certificationcourses.
There's going to be a lot ofpeople that don't take those
(47:11):
full certifications that stillneed education. And so that's
where our target focus is.
Zack Semke (47:19):
I had the honor of visiting Boston a couple of
weeks ago to deliver the keynoteaddress at Passive House
Massachusetts twenty twenty fivePassive House Symposium. During
my visit there, I learned thatBeth's numbers have been updated
to 35,000 units being in thepipeline now. If all were built,
that would amount to somewherebetween thirty and thirty five
(47:39):
million square feet of passivehouse and passive building
projects in just one state. Forcontext, The entire US has about
12,000,000 square feet ofcertified passive projects built
to date. So Massachusetts iscreating a hockey stick of
adoption of Passive House forthe entire country.
Incredibly exciting. On thatnote, I hope these snippets of
(48:02):
our experts in residence in TheCollective have piqued You can
dive into the full replays ofthese conversations all
available in the Collective. Andif you're not yet a member of
the Collective, we'd love tohave you join us. You'll get
direct access to experts andpeers who are on the same
journey with buildings,resilience, and climate. Learn
more at reimaginebuildings.com.
Speaking of members, a warmwelcome to our newest
(48:24):
Reimaginers. Kristen Bailey,Scott Drennan, Aaron Sourhoff,
Carrie Beer, Liam Smedley, KevinStack, Laura Blau, Benoit
Bemenu, Gio Beltran, MarkGranin, Jenin Pertslinger,
Joseph Martin, Susan Blumquist,Rebecca Griffith, Tamiya
Sarkozy, Jane Sanders, MatthewRichardson, Peter Reagor, and
(48:45):
Jake Bales. With that, thanksfor listening to this fourteenth
episode of the Reimagine Edit, aproduction of the Passive House
podcast by Passive HouseAccelerator. It's a privilege to
bring these conversations fromthe Reimagined Buildings
Collective into the open. Eachtime we share what we're
learning and take the time toreally listen, we sharpen our
(49:06):
practice together.
None of this work happens inisolation. We're learning
alongside one another, buildingas we go, and gradually finding
clearer footing toward thefuture we're trying to create.
So thanks for being part of thisongoing experiment in
reimagining buildings. And ifyou're not yet part of the
collective and you're curious,check it out. We'd love for you
to join us.
With that, have a great coupleof weeks. We'll be back soon
(49:29):
with another episode of theReimagine Edit.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.