Update: Read our owner interview with more background on this project.

This beautiful home will be the first certified Passive House in Utah.  Passive House consultant Dave Brach, principal of Brach Design Architecture, anticipates receiving a certificate in the next week or so.  He designed the Breezeway House to consume only 10% of the energy of an existing single family home of the same size and location and 20% of the energy of a new home built to code.  What’s more, solar electric and hot water panels should produce about 75% of the home’s annual energy needs.

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Yesterday, a new green home design studio called Fab-Homes launched a collection of pre-designed Passive Houses for the North American market.  The Vancouver-based company designed the homes to consume up to 90% less energy for heating, cooling, and operations.  The actual Passive House standard will be the goal, although these homes won’t necessarily be required to satisfy the standard’s rigorous efficiency requirements.

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If you're in the area, the next project by Postgreen, the development company behind the award-winning 100k House, will be open for tours on Thursday, December 17.  Dubbed The Passive Project, the tour will include two newly constructed row houses built to a rigorous and trendy German Passiv Haus standard.  When certified, these homes — located at 2318-2320 Amber Street — should be the first to do so in the Philadelphia. 

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With only the engineering and net metering contests remaining, the Solar Decathlon entry for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is now slightly ahead of other contenders, including Team California and Team Germany.  It’s a tight competition, though.  Solar Decathlon director Richard King yesterday said Team Germany may just receive approximately 25 more points that the next closest team in the net metering contest.  Such a point spread could propel the same to its second straight victory.  Nevertheless, Illinois has this beautiful home built with reclaimed materials that can produce up to four times its energy needs at times.

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Update: See the completed Breezeway House and our owner interview.

There’s a new site called Our Passive House, where the owners are documenting the design and construction of the first Passive House in Utah.  It just so happens that I live in the same general neighborhood, so we’ll try to present a follow up article when the home is complete.  Owners Joe and Rebecca, available on Twitter @ourpassivehouse, hired Brach Design, Utah’s first certified Passive House consultant, to design the home.

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