“Creating a Healthier, Low-Carbon Future”
Northeast Notifications
Fall 2022
Updates from our Board
We’ve been busy! And the rest of the U.S. has been watching. We are very happy to share this recent Forbes article. which features several Phius-certified projects by our Alliance members. This article is indicative of the wider range of people that Phius will begin to serve in the upcoming several years and we, as a chapter, are gearing up to support that demand.
Board and officer elections were held in person during our Fall meetup in Beacon. Michelle Tinner, who had served as President for the maximum term of four years, will be shifting roles to become the Phius Alliance Northeast regional representative. During Michelle’s term as President she faced many challenges in the shift to online programming, but navigated our chapter through those challenges in a way that unlocked new potential of our once-small chapter. Under Michelle’s direction, this chapter now reaches the entirety of New York State and the Northeast region at large, promotes Phius training in colleges and Universities across NYS, and has greatly improved the quality and frequency of chapter marketing efforts. John Loercher will serve as our chapter president.
Through our partnership with NYSERDA, we are committed to the continued improvement of marketing and content creation and are seeking to renew our partnership for another year. For this reason, and due to the integration of online meetings, we have voted as a chapter to change the chapter name to: “Phius Alliance New York” to better represent our constituents. We have also voted to expand our board by two seats and are currently seeking representation in other parts of NYS than the Hudson Valley. If interested in joining the board, please contact us at info@phiusny.org.
Outside of NYS, the national Phius alliance chapter is also spreading with new chapters in the Southeast and Texas. While there are many active chapters throughout the US, the New York chapter continues to be the most active.
Previous Meetings
Annual Chapter Meetup
Sept 8, 2022 – Beacon, NY
Thank you to everyone who came out for the chapter’s annual meetup on September 8 in Beacon! Special thanks to Hudson Valley Brewery and Groundlings Pizza Co. for welcoming us back and serving up local brews and amazing wood-fired pizza. We had a great time seeing familiar faces and meeting new people who are interested in passive building and looking to get involved with the chapter. Thank you to our sponsor NYSERDA for helping us make events like these possible!
Summer Quarterly
June 9, 2022 – Stone Ridge, NY
Thank you to everyone who came to our Summer Quarterly in Stone Ridge! More than 60 people joined us to walk through two North River Architecture & Planning, PC residential projects which are iterations of NR’s “FlexHouse III” Passive House design concept featuring flexible living spaces and long-term planning to facilitate adaptive configuration of the homes as living requirements change. And thanks to our event sponsor NYSERDA for helping us make this tour possible.
Dive deeper into passive building with short videos filmed at the event:
Save the Date!
Winter Quarterly Meeting
Dec, 7, 2022 (Online), 4pm ET
Passive Envelope: Historic Landmarks and Craft Details
Feature Presentation: Scaling Historic Masonry Retrofits
Successful Passive House teams throughout North America follow an approach that, if replicated at scale, can reduce the energy load and carbon output of the built environment at the level needed to address climate change, while improving building quality. Effective scaling requires maintaining an integrated team from early design through construction completion. We will identify challenges in the Passive House process and share the details of a proven approach to integrating teams, which can be easily and repeatably implemented in projects of all sizes and shapes. We will provide best practices for informing design and construction team members of the benefits of Passive House, reducing risk and lowering costs while sharing knowledge and feedback with the community.
Speakers
Michael Ingui, Baxt Ingui
Will Conner, Baxt Ingui
John Mitchell, BLDGTYP
Andrew Fishman, SMR Craftworks
Cramer Silkworth, Baukraft Engineering
This event is sponsored by NYSERDA and New Energy Works. Thank you for helping is make this event possible!
Newly Certified Projects
North River Architecture & Planning
These three newly certified projects are designed by North River Architecture, and constructed by North River Design Build. As examples of North River’s Flexhouse design concept, these houses utilize simple, gabled volumes and standard construction practices to achieve affordable Passive House energy efficiency. With sites that allow direct southern orientation, large glazing areas provide effective wintertime solar gains, maximize views and create a generous scale of indoor/outdoor living.
Project Team:
North River Architecture & Planning, PC Architect
North River Design Build, General Contractor
Baukraft Engineering, HVAC Design
Northeast Projects, CPHC
Spruce Mountain, Phius Rater
Kaaterskill Associates, Structural Engineering
Basten Farm Flexhouse III North
Basten Farm Flexhouse III South
Kerhonkson Flexhouse II
Bronx Pro Passive House Portfolio
2126 Mapes Avenue: Passive House and Enterprise Green Communities; 33,738 SF; 6 stories; 30 apartments. Exclusively for individuals and families between 30% and 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI)
Market: Affordable Housing
Type: Residential
Location: Bronx, NY
Developer/Owner: Bronx Pro Group
Architect: Curtis + Ginsberg Architects
2126 Mapes Avenue
Initiative Updates
University Initiative
While the chapter has several initiatives, the most notable in 2022 has been the University outreach initiative. Our chapter has sponsored students at both Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and University at Buffalo (UB) to take the Phius Certified Passive House Consultants (CPHC) course and receive the professional credential before they receive their degree. To date the two schools have certified 18 new CPHCs and are in discussions with other Universities to expand the program to other schools across NYS.
(above: CPHC Design study, Jordan Jackson – Capstone Studio, RPI 2022)
Affordable Single Family Housing Progress
Dennis Wedlick FAIA
Chair, AIANY CRAN®️
Founder, Principal Emeritus,
BarlisWedlick Architects LLC
Here’s the time line in Columbia County of NYSERDA supported affordable single-family housing projects that the PHA-HV AEC team members donated their services to. We know there are many others elsewhere.
- 2008 to 2010. Hudson Passive Project Case Study House— First ground-up single-family residence certified in NYS. Research and Development supported by NYSERDA. NYSERDA monitoring demonstrated a 99% lower heating and 86% lower cooling cost than conventional construction without solar, geothermal, or any wood/gas heating sources.
- 2010 and ongoing. CCH4H Semi-detached Affordable Single-family Case Study Houses. On scattered sites in urban and suburban residential communities, certified Passive House homes made affordable for Columbia County Habitat for Humanity families in Hudson Valley communities with incomes between 60 to 80% AMI. Initial design and monitoring supported by NYSERDA. Monitored monthly total utility and maintenance costs between 25$ to 80$.
- 2022. CCH4H Ancramdale Semi-detached Afford Single-family Case Study Houses. On donated land in agricultural residential community, certified Passive House homes made affordable for Columbia County Habitat for Humanity families in a Hudson Valley rural communities with incomes between 60 to 80% AMI. Low-density, rural residential zero-lot-line subdivision with on-site septic/well. Monitored monthly total utility and maintenance bill 40$.
None of this work would have been possible if we all were not passionate about the benefits of Passive House. Those who would benefit the most from PHA-HV member skills would be our rural workforce families because they have limited access to the type of community/state support that our urban and suburban workforce has, such as public transportation, day care, senior care, workplace benefits, etc. By virtually eliminating our rural workers monthly utility and maintenance expenses, these families have a chance to live/work where they are needed without having to endure the pain and suffering of housing poverty and housing insecurity. We cannot sustain our agricultural economy and rural environment without a viable rural workforce.
The more we raise awareness of the value of high-performance housing for sustainable a viable rural workforce, the more likely we will secure the financial and political support we need to have a meaningful impact on their quality of life, and the preservation of our agricultural economy and rural environment for the benefit of all.
TOWARD A MORE EQUITABLE SF PASSIVE HOUSE
Doug Huntington
AIA, CPHC, LEED AP, Baris Wedlick Architects LLC
Why a climate-smart community land trust may be a viable tool for bringing affordable, higher-performing, single-family housing into rural areas.
The high cost of energy and home maintenance has forced the majority of rural workforce families into housing poverty with 40% to 50% of their income is being spent of housing costs. The monthly energy and home maintenance cost-savings of living in a high-performance Passive House would significantly help rural workforce families climb out of housing poverty.
Unfortunately, in rural areas, Passive House technology is often only applied in the development of high-end custom homes because federal and state funding for the development of affordable homes using climate-smart technologies is rarely available to the rural homebuilder—who typically builds one or two affordable homes at a time—and favors developers of multifamily affordable housing projects in urban and suburban communities. The creation of a single Climate-smart Community Land Trust specifically for the development of multiple SF Passive Houses on scattered sites may be a viable workaround to these limitations for rural homebuilders, allowing them to gather five to ten homebuilding development sites and present the work as a larger multifamily affordable housing project in order to solicit federal and state funding.
Local Community Updates
NEWBURGH YOUTHBUILD
Michael Robinson, chapter board member, met with four Newburgh YouthBuild participants to talk about Passive building and the pressing need for its adoption in the context of a warming world which relies on carbon intensive construction practices. He walked them through his own process of retrofitting a Newburgh townhouse to Passive standards and encouraged them to adopt some of the practices into the Youth Build project. Check out the group’s October newsletter!
NYSERDA Updates
Climate Action Council
On July 18, 2019, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) was signed into law. New York State’s Climate Act is among the most ambitious climate laws in the world and requires New York to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and no less than 85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. The law creates a Climate Action Council charged with developing a scoping plan of recommendations to meet these targets and place New York on a path toward carbon neutrality.
The New York State Climate Action Council is a 22-member committee that will prepare a Scoping Plan to achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.
Upcoming Climate Action Council meetings:
- Monday, December 5, 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Monday, December 19, 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Members of the public can attend in-person and also view the meeting via webcast. Pre-registration is not required to observe the meeting via webcast.
Funding Opportunities, PONs, RFPs, RFQs
NYSERDA’s various programs (such as residential, commercial, transportation, environmental) outline broad energy and environmental challenges, and then publicly request proposals, from any private or institutional entity, to submit project plans addressing those issues. Learn more...
Phius Updates
TRAININGS & EVENTS
Phius is a non-profit organization and education is at the heart of our mission. Phius training emphasizes the importance of design and materials that optimize comfort and energy usage based on local climate. Stay up to date with Phius trainings at www.phius.org/browse-all-events. Consider becoming a chapter member to be the first to learn about new resources and training dates.
Upcoming
WUFI Passive Advanced – Single Family | December 2022
- Dec 1-2, 2022
- Live Virtual Session
Member Office Hours – WUFI Passive
- Dec 6, 2022
- Live Virtual Session
- Dec 13, 2022
- Live Virtual Session
RDH Building Science – Custom High Performance: Achieving Low Carbon in Atypical Building Types
- Dec 14, 2022
- Live Virtual Session
Check out the Phius website for upcoming dates for CPHC, CPHB, and Rater/Verified training.
Chapter Membership
Your participation as a member is vital to the strength and effectiveness of our organization. Membership provides you the right to vote, hold office, and earns you great discounts to Phius events- including informative webinars, attendance to the annual North American Passive House Conference, and professional training courses. By selecting Phius alliance New York as your affiliate chapter, we get a percentage of dues, which contribute to advocacy, development and supporting chapter events. Learn more on the chapter website.