Words & Illustrations by Maya Merrill

Peter and Lori Kugler’s home stands at the end of a narrow and windy gravel road that leads to a large clearing on an elevated mound of earth surrounded by lush forest and uprooted tree trunks – but the area around the house has no trees, allowing full sun to the solar panels on the roof. 

The Kugler’s house looks like many other houses in the area around Springfield and Eugene, Oregon, but it is not. Every construction detail of the house minimizes energy use: triple-pane windows imported from Europe, continuous cork insulation envelopes the house, and a slanted roof extends over the deck at a calculated angle to maximize the sun’s rays throughout the year. Peter and Lori use about 10% of the energy of the average home in Lane County and pay less than $4 for energy per month. Their electric bill is so low because they often produce more energy from their solar panels than they use, which they can sell back to the city’s electric grid to offset their bill.

Peter Kugler spent much of his career working in construction and Lori worked as a nurse. When they retired, they volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, a global nonprofit that organizes local volunteers to build shelter and housing for those in need. This experience, and their interest in sustainability, motivated the Kuglers to research passive houses, a kind of house designed to require little or no energy to heat. When they met architect Jan Filllinger, a specialist in passive house design and principal architect at Studio.e architecture, they began to plan to build their own passive home. 

After a couple years of scouting, the Kuglers bought their site on the hill in Lane County, Oregon in December 2018. They sold their old house and moved into a fifth wheel trailer on the new property and lived there for three years as they designed and built their passive house, which was slowed by the pandemic and material shortages. They finished building the house in December 2021 and moved in April 2022. 

“One of the happiest days of building this house was the day I saw the fifth wheel get dragged away,” laughed Peter Kugler.

As I stand in the Kugler’s home, I can’t really see construction details and the energy efficient appliances until Peter points them out (see illustration below), but I don’t need any help feeling fresh air, a comfortable and stable temperature, lots of natural light, and a peaceful quiet. On the day I am there, the sounds of children’s laughter and running footsteps enliven the house as sun pours through the windows. The smell of barbeque sneaks through the house when someone opens the door to the shaded deck where the Kruger’s grill stands.

Peter looks around at the house he and Lori built. “Our last house was built in 1890. When they tore it apart, there were four layers of newspaper in the walls for insulation. It was so leaky, with 16 air exchanges per hour. The temperature inside was very up and down, and during the winters we were always running the gas furnace,” he says. “Here, we stay at an average of 68 degrees in the winter. At our last house, we had 2×4 walls and you could hear everything. The traffic, the road noise, everything. This is much, much quieter.” 

Principles of Passive House Design

The idea behind the passive house design is simple, yet effective: create an airtight house or building that efficiently traps the passive heat generated by humans, their appliances and sunlight  to maintain the inner temperature. This creates a house or building that requires little to no energy and approaches zero carbon emissions.

To do this, the Kuglers followed a set of strict principles that define a Passive House:  

From Start to Finish 

Learn more about how the Kugler’s designed and built their home by sliding through the gallery below.