The post Net Zero Energy Karuna House: LEED + Passive House + Minergie = Green Building Triple Crown appeared first on Modern Enviro.
Located in Yamhill County, Oregon, the Karuna House is a recently completed collaboration from Holst Architecture and Hammer & Hand builders. Utilizing an extremely high performance building envelope and solar design, the net zero energy home is the first one to achieve all three top green building certifications.
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The home is so energy efficient, in fact, that its energy needs are served by a small solar array. Yet the Karuna house design still provides a large living space, as well as an unusually high proportion of glazing to opaque walls (translation: lots of windows, instead of easier-to-insulate solid walls).
A few of the unique features integrated into the Karuna House design:
- High-performance windows and shading systems to take advantage of solar gain from sunlight
- Daiken Altherma air-to-water heat pump, which provides all domestic hot water as well as radiant floor heating
- Air- and water-tight wall construction that delivers incredible insulation (with an R-value of nearly 60!!!) yet remains vapor permeable
- GeoFoam EPS (expanded polystyrene) foundation insulation
- Heat recovery ventilation system that captures and re-uses 90% of the heat from exhaust air
- 9.9 kilowatt photovoltaic array (that earns extra “green” credit for being locally sourced from Oregon-based SolarWorld)
For more info and specs, visit the Hammer & Hand website:
http://hammerandhand.com/karuna-passive-house
(images: Hammer & Hand)
Via Modern Enviro - Energy efficient homes, eco-friendly architecture, and green technology..
