2023
2023
Photo by Isaac Wasserman.
The Kugler family chats in the shade of their deck as an array of solar panels catches the sun above them and powers their home.
Words & Illustrations by Maya Merrill
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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.
Photos by Isaac Wasserman.
Scroll through the slideshow to take a look inside the Kugler’s energetic home.
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.
Read More About Passive Homes
Passive houses are not common. Many contractors refuse to undertake passive house projects because the requirements to build are stringent, a passive house requires preparatory steps before construction even starts and costs thousands more to build than regular homes To help builders, designers and owners, the Passive House Institute US (PHIUS) certification program tries to make it easier for builders and architects to work together while requiring that both builders and architects receive passive house training to be officially certified. In the end, a passive house must pass the “blower door test” which tests the airtightness of the home.
The term “passive house” was first coined in 1982 by American physicist William Shurcliff to describe a building design that combined superinsulation and passive solar strategies. In 1986, German physicist Wolfgang Feist improved upon these building-energy conservation techniques to develop an even more energy-efficient house, and he founded the Passive Haus Institute in Germany. The Passive House design has since returned to the US and is gaining popularity, after Katrin Klingenberg and Mike Kernagis co-founded the Passive House Institute US (PHIUS) in 2007.
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:
1. Continuous Insulation.
Continuous insulation means that the Passive House building is fully wrapped in insulation across every face, without any weak spots where heat might leak in or out of the building envelope. This keeps a cool temperature in the summers and a warm one in the winters.
2. Thermal Bridge-Free Design
Similar to continuous insulation, passive homes are designed to eliminate any thermal bridges, which are spots where heat could potentially escape in the house envelope. A thermal bridge is an area of the house where heat flows from inside to outside the house more than other areas, causing the temperature of the inside surface near the thermal bridge to be lower. Condensation, moisture and eventually mold could occur if this spot becomes too cold. Examples of thermal bridges would be a concrete floor that easily loses heat or a loosely sealed window frame.
3. Air-tight Construction
The amount of air filtration in the passive house design is limited to 0.6 air changes per hour according to PHI standards. This is tested using the “blower door test” conducted by installing a fan that draws air out of the house and measuring the amount of air that seeps through all openings in the house. During Peter and Lori’s last blower door test, they achieved a score well under the PHI standard, indicating that they have an incredibly air-tight home.
4. High Performance Windows and Doors
Windows and doors are tightly sealed to prevent any air leakage. Passive houses typically have triple pane windows (most regular houses have two pane windows) with gasses between each window pane to provide additional insulation. Outdoor shading is carefully built at an angle that allows sunlight through windows to heat the home in the winters while shading it in the summers.
5. Filtered fresh air with Heat Recovery
Since passive houses are designed to be incredibly air-tight, they have to incorporate air ducts, filters and ventilation systems that effectively bring fresh air inside and transfer stale air outside without losing heat. This requires certified passive house components such as a Zehnder Comfoair Heat Recovery Ventilator, which traps heat while transferring air in and out of the house, and uses an effective filter to maintain high air quality.
From Start to Finish
Learn more about how the Kugler’s designed and built their home by sliding through the gallery below.
Photo 1 by Isaac Wasserman, all other photos courtesy Peter Kugler.
SOURCES
Interviews
- Merrill, M., & Fillinger, J. (2023, March 7). Jan Fillinger Interview.
- Merrill, M., & Kugler, P. (2023, June 25). Passive House Interview 2.
- Merrill, M., Kugler, P., & Kugler, L. (2023, March 4). Passive House Interview 1.
Bibliography
- Efficient Windows Collaborative. (n.d.). Performance standards: Passive House Institute US – efficient windows. What is Passive House? https://efficientwindows.org/standards-passivhaus/
- Kuchta, D. M. (2022, October 29). What is a passive house? principles and design. Treehugger. https://www.treehugger.com/what-is-a-passive-house-principles-and-design-5443122
- Macri, D. (2018, February 13). Passive House vs. traditional build comparison [infographic]. Elemental Green | Dream Discover Design. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from
https://elemental.green/passive-house-vs-traditional-build-comparison-infographic/ - Passipedia: The Passive House Resource. (n.d.). What is a Passive House? [Passipedia EN]. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://passipedia.org/basics/what_is_a_passive_house
- PHIUS. (n.d.). Phius Core Standard Specifications.
https://www.phius.org/phius-core-standard-specifications - Studio.e Architecture. (n.d.). Passive house: What is a Passive House? https://studioearchitecture.com/passive-house
- The International Passive House Association. (2020, September 3). What is a thermal bridge? iPHA Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.passivehouse-international.org/what-is-a-thermal-bridge/
- Vaughan, E. (2017, June 23). The history of Passive House: A global movement with North American roots. EESI.
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/the-history-of-passive-house-a-global-movement-with-north-a
merican-roots
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