Passive House Bay Area

This is a Bay Area Passive House with a modern design that is under construction in Los Altos. Passive House is a building standard, also known as PassivHaus, which offers superior indoor air quality and energy-efficiency (up to 90% better than conventional buildings).

This is achieved with high-performance windows, more insulation than required by Title-24 (California's Energy Code), and most importantly robust air-sealing resulting in at most .6 air changes per hour at 50 pascals (as compared with 6, which is 10 times greater, for conventional new home construction). One of the images shows door blower testing to test the air tightness of the home during construction.

These measures reduce the amount of heating and cooling equipment required to keep the home comfortable. The whole house ventilation system by Zehnder continually provides fresh filtered air while exhausting stale air. This home will not only perform well for its inhabitants, it will be a beautiful modern home.