At the April Connecticut Passive House Roundtable, Ken Levenson, Executive Director of The Passive House Network (PHN), shared current developments and strategic efforts in the Passive House movement. He emphasized the importance of community collaboration, policy advocacy, and continued momentum in light of both environmental urgency and social responsibility.
Speaker: Ken Levenson, Passive House Network
Connecticut Passive House Community Roundtable
April 14, 2025
Guest Ken Levenson from The Passive House Network
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[SH] So, I’d like to welcome everyone to our April Connecticut Passive House Roundtable. Connecticut Passive House is a community within the BuildGreenCT organization. And I want to thank Ken Levenson for donating his hour to us today. I personally crossed paths with Ken Levenson about 10 years ago when he was the head of New York Passive House and consulted with us for figuring out how to put Connecticut Passive House together. And so this is a really nice full circle moment for me and the organization. So, welcome, Ken.
Thank you.
[SH] And I thought I’d just sort of prompt the discussion by asking Ken what sort of fun and new exciting things he’s seeing out in the world for Passive House.
That’s a big question.
[SH] It is.
Thank you, Sarah. It’s great to be here and happy to try to answer that. And I will say it is exciting to meet with other Passive House groups and groups of people interested in Passive House and support their growth as well. And it’s really wonderful, however we can, you know, in collaborating and everything. I think the sort of generous community aspect of it really keeps me going, in a sense, for sure. So, very, very happy to be here. Glad to be asked.
So, what am I excited about? I mean, it’s such a strange time, isn’t it? We’re so overwhelmed with the shock and awe that’s going on day after day, just relentlessly and trying to plan and keep, you know, keep the ships moving and kind of like in the one hand act like nothing is going on. And on the other hand, you know, oh, my gosh, everything’s on fire.
So, I’m looking forward to going to the protest march on Saturday in New York. That’s how I’m excited about that. My wife and I went to the protest march last Saturday on the 10th. No, was it the 10th? Whatever it was, the week before. Yeah, it wasn’t the 10th. It must have been the third. Which was great. And to just see so much more of that, I think, you know, and I try to tie it back to all things passive house, of course, because, you know, as my children, well, when my kids were little, they’re now 15 and 18. But one daughter, we were standing on a sidewalk and, you know, I’m kind of staring off to space as we’re waiting for the light to change at the corner. And I don’t know, my six-year-old must have looked, she looked up at me and said, Daddy, are you thinking about passive house? And I looked down and I was like, why yes, Amelia. Yes, I am.
So in the spirit of all things, passive house, you know, just like the fight for sustainability, a livable planet environment, you know, equitable outcomes, all of these things that were passionate about passive house, because it’s not it’s not a neutral thing, you know, I feel like it’s perfectly natural to engage in a way it’s not a political. So, I put myself out there.
But when I came on board as the ED of The Network, I was very upfront with the board about that, because I was like, you know, it was actually right after George Floyd was killed. And, you know, the country was blowing up that summer. I was like, we have to be out front. We can’t like I’m not going to just kind of be pretend everything’s normal. So, and the board was down with that. And so that was good, because previously, I hadn’t been the ED. It’s kind of this weird journey. But I was on the one of the founders and the board member, and then I stepped away and came back and all of that sort of thing. So you know, more to the point of passive house, maybe, you know, it’s exciting to see interest pop up around.
It’s exciting to see people want to talk about in terms of policy and implementation and, you know, wanting to figure it out. I think there’s been some big, you know, with the obvious superstar being Massachusetts at the moment with their code adoption, which were very hasn’t shamed New York enough, I guess, yet, because they took what New York did and kind of went times 10, which was wonderful. And we tried to shame New York with it, but we haven’t succeeded yet. But more is happening. And I think we’re working. So, we have a policy committee at the at the network working on policy initiatives in jurisdictions. It could be local, it could be state or national.
And one thing I want to throw out there is if these committees like the policy committee is open to anybody, you don’t have to be a member of PHN, you don’t have to be any specific connection, we’re very open to bring in people who are interested in contributing and helping because I think as we see in a lot of ways, it helps to have kind of friendly competition. And to be aware of what’s happening in other similar jurisdictions. And so, you know, folks in Maryland get excited about what’s happening in other states and then Maryland wants to figure it out or, or, you know, in California, or, and so on and so forth. It can be tough, but I think there’s just a lot of possibilities there right now.
A couple of the key committee members are working on the International Energy Conservation Code. And it’s been really difficult to figure out how to unlock that because they’re not going to allow any proprietary standards in, even though they have had LEED in the past and, or maybe, I don’t know, the IECC has had LEED, but the, they have things other, they’ve had other proprietary standards in the past. And anyway, we’re trying to figure out how to make that work. And it seems like there may be a couple of avenues of, of having third party certifications that are acknowledged to meet the, the energy code requirements. So there wouldn’t be requiring passive house in any shape or form, but it would allow a parallel pathway, which is kind of like, you know, one of the steps on the way to do that.
We also see more activity and we’ve had more opportunity, I guess, with other advocates, whether it’s for affordable housing or climate action, taking the initiative in pushing, pushing code or legislative updates to address it. So that’s great. And we’re very hopeful that that momentum will keep up despite what’s going on at the federal level, that the states won’t be, will still have the bandwidth to, to, to do, deal with this stuff. So that’s interesting.
For us as an organization, one of the things that’s interesting that we’re taking on at the moment is kind of climate disaster support, reconstruction support. So after the Los Angeles, well, after the Marshall fire in Colorado, we were very involved in, we have a lot of presence in kind of front range Denver, Boulder area, and working with Excel energy there and the local governments to see about how to incentivize passive house in the rebuilding efforts, which to a limited extent was successful. And I think it helped open a lot of eyes. And I think it was one of the steps Denver just announced big incentives for passive house training and affordable housing construction and, and things like that. And I think our considered effort out there was helpful for sure…
[SH] I think it’s interesting to hear Ken talk about Massachusetts. I mean, I feel like I’ll speak for myself, but I want to also shame Connecticut into stepping it up to, you know, match our neighbor’s commitment, our neighbor Massachusetts. So it’s interesting to hear him talk about policy to do that.
[AD] When we were at a former life when I was had the capacity to be very involved with affordable housing, which I think is really where passive house first wedged its way into like, right, the conversation for, for low-income housing tax credits. Actually, that was really the, that was the blueprint was really using because according to behavioral science, people hate feeling like they’re being left, you know, they’re the lackeys. So, we were able to point to other states and go see they’re doing it. They’re doing it. And it really made a big difference in Connecticut.
And yet, you know, I think we tried and sputtered and to use that same playbook, you know, for other initiatives or other things. And I just don’t seem to have this, I don’t know what it is that the legislator doesn’t mean it was easy to work with CHFA, you know, the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, to get an audience with them and to like get that across the line. But with the legislators, they just don’t seem to have the political will or the stomach for it. Doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of continued press, but they just don’t seem to have it here.
[SH] Yeah. And I think, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So, I can think of some interest groups that didn’t want to have to meet standards. And so they’re just louder than we are.
[AD] Yeah, for sure. Ken, we were talking about how your comments about, you know, shaming one state to nudge the other can be really effective. And I was saying that it took me back to the earliest days when I was able to be much more active in advocacy. And with other people in this roundtable right now, we banded together and were able to get passive housing, affordable housing, really insert that into our state, our Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, you know, playbook, if you will. And that was very, very successful. And you’re right, there is that sort of behavioral research that says, you know, no one likes to feel like they’re the, you know, the lackey, like the lame, you know, the odd duck, they’re like behind the times. But we haven’t been successful since then with things that require legislative approval. And I, you know, and despite, I mean, we have gone and pointed to Massachusetts and pointed to New York. And the legislator just doesn’t, they don’t either seem to have the political will or the guts. I always say, you know, it’s the Connecticut is the land of steady habits. It’s our worst, you know, it’s like the nightmare over here.
But you remind us of the power of these like staying in touch with each other and figuring out like, is there some thing, one thing that we can potentially rally around as a more of a united front, a coordinated front. And maybe that would make the difference. I don’t know. But it’s I’m so glad you’re we’re having this conversation with you today.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, and we’re I would like to say we have a grand strategy or something, but it’s really opportunistic. It’s you know, you find somebody that’s interested, that has, you know, somebody’s ear that is just showing the energy and wants to go for it. We kind of just feed that as much as we can. And you know, the policy efforts on our side are ad hoc at best.
But Bronwyn Barry, who’s been a longtime policy lead out of she’s out of San Francisco, but dealing with it nationally has lent consistency. But she has a full-time job and everything else volunteer basis has been, you know, really good. What was I gonna say before about that?
[SH] You were talking about your involvement with the Marshall fire and the wildfires.
Right. And so that was in the committee, the disaster support. So out of that, we kind of had, you know, we had some events and we ended up having our conference a couple of years later in Denver and programming and whatnot. And then so after the Los Angeles fires, and through our affiliation with passive house California and a lot of members there in California, sought to kind of build on what we did with the Marshall fire and think about it more. Not event by event, but like, these things are going to keep happening, like, how do we put something in place? And so we have a committee working on this issue as well. And in particular, you know, from wildfire rebuilds.
I think, you know, there’s potentially a tie in with tornadoes and hurricanes and all of these things, but the wildfires probably more direct. And so I’m excited about us, like, using these crises to build some resources that can be evergreen. And so we’re not like scrambling every time.
We’re planning on having a design competition that will launch at the USGBC California conference in San Francisco in another month or so. They’ll focus on, like, prototypes for rebuilding homes in Los Angeles. So, we haven’t that’s going to be announced a bit down. So, you’re getting some insider information. Don’t say anything. So, but to use these, it’s rather than just having a design competition that’s kind of like out on its own to kind of purpose, you know, put a purpose to it and then see. We’ll see what happens. So, that is exciting and dealing, you know, trying to figure that out. Not directly.
Well, I was just jotting down a few things and not directly related to passive house, but in the ecosystem is this whole idea of pushing and this again goes to codes and legislative efforts, but single stair multifamily buildings, which has been in the conversation more and more in passive house in terms of having more efficient buildings, more family friendly buildings, just more sustainable living and better kind of community living. And there is a great so I’ve got a few links here. Let me put this. So, there’s a great so well, actually two things.
So, Mike Michael Eliasson, who’s a passive house architect out of Seattle, Washington, and a longtime leader. He’s brilliant. He came out with this book late last year called Building for People. And he’s been a longtime proponent of the single stair multifamily building, which is called Point Access Blocks from I guess learning from Europe. But Harvard University came out with a study last year, late last year on Point Access Blocks and a real push to in the context in particular of Massachusetts to upgrade their codes to allow for it and to allow for I don’t know if it doesn’t look like Massachusetts. Massachusetts allows it for several stories, but not much higher. I think it’s like four or five stories like New York. But in Europe, in many places, you can go up to 15 stories or more. Let me see. Maybe not that high. Eight stories, nine stories, which can really make a big difference.
And from a passive house perspective, it actually opens up a lot of opportunities in terms of building efficiency and lowering the circulation area, having a better quality of life. So, it’s been interesting to see the conversation around that grow. Let me put in his link to it, have it here, the Building for People. It’s a great book.
[SH] Great. Thank you.
Yeah. Another thing I’m excited about with passive house is the growing kind of ecosystem of practitioners and suppliers to it. I want to put into the chat. So, we created this new page recently, a manufacturer’s supplier directory. And I wanted to not have something that was like a sponsorship-driven thing that was just like, we’re just going to put in everything that we think deserves to be there and not kind of filter it by who’s paying us. Now, there may be an opportunity, I don’t know, to build on it somehow. And this is not totally complete by a long shot. And if there are omissions that you’re aware of, I encourage everybody to reach out and let us know. It is a curated list. It’s not just like anybody who wants to be on it can be on it. There have to be like real players and things. But with this list, so I just put the link in the chat, it goes through the basic areas of passive house that we know so well. And lists all the manufacturers and suppliers and whether they may offer PHI certified components or they need to be compatible with the construction.
So, all of a sudden you see there’s a ton of window suppliers and manufacturers. It’s kind of hard to believe, and I know I’m missing some. And really the impetus for this was people would ask like, oh, what window suppliers are there? And I’d be like just rattling off from memory and say, oh, we’ll look here or there. But I would forget people, of course, and it would just come out different every time. So, here’s a list we can build on and keep growing.
So, to me, it’s really saying, I turn around every week and I’m like, oh, we’ve got to add them, we’ve got to add these people, those people. Really exciting to see this kind of growth in the industrial support of it.
Then there are the projects, of course. There are more and more projects. It’s growing. I’d love to see the role of affordable housing in it. There’s nothing all that new there, but that it’s growing, I think. If it fits and starts, it’s growing.
What else am I thinking about? I mean, I’m thinking about, well, a couple of other things. This ties to PHN, but in general, and how we can cultivate it more. I think a lot of it happens informally is kind of mentorship. We’re trying to be more intentional about mentorship between practitioners and trying to pair people up. It’s tough. It’s not easy.
We have, you know, Susie Harris is our new community manager and she’s writing chapters of membership and all of this, but she’s taken on the mentorship and trying to constantly. It’s easier to find mentees than mentors, of course. We have a line of mentees and we’ll look forward to growing the mentors. We’re trying to figure out, we’ve only done one cohort in the last year or basically it’s over six months and you minimum meet once a month to talk about whatever folks want to talk about. That’s interesting.
I was thinking, so this is kind of out of left field in a way, but I don’t know if you all have, maybe you have, I’m just unaware, but have an event at Hotel Marcel? You have.
[SH] Yes, that’s one of our favorite venues.
It’s one of your go-to places. Okay. Good. Good. Good.
[SH] Have you been?
I’ve been. I have not stayed overnight or anything.
[SH] I haven’t either.
[AD] We have somebody on our, who was a former board chair. He’s now, he’s a board advisor. He can’t quit us. We always laugh, but he’s amazing. He’s actually the chair of our finance committee and his company is based in Glastonbury, Connecticut, but he lives in Massachusetts. He’s here all the time and so he’s been able to stay at Hotel Marcel.
Oh, wonderful.
[AD] Actually, a number of times, which is great.
What is your report?
[AD] Oh, it’s, yeah, it’s incredible. I mean, it’s, we did, we’ve done, we did a really fantastic kind of like pro tour there, probably a couple of years ago and had like, we looped in like two other, we tried to sort of do it as a three-pronged event to kind of make sure we got a really, you know, like robust crowd. I think we probably had, I don’t know, 75, 80 people there and some of them did stay over but we got a really incredible tour of that building with Bruce being one of the tour guides and actually my husband and partner who is the passive house builder, I still have this film of him going up on the roof. He’s like, I don’t think many of the other tour attendees got this private tour, but since we’re with Bruce, he took us up out on the roof and I’m like, looking up there going, yeah, you’re the only like eight people in the universe who got an inside access to her from Bruce.
And we did another, we did a shoulder event there, I want to say more recently as part of our cons, our NESSBE conference was another, which is another flagship of that.
And every time we get back in that building, you know, Bruce will give an update on that building and its performance. And it is a fascinating, real world, you know, evolving case study because Bruce is brutally honest about what’s working and what’s not working. He’s constantly tinkering with it. Yes. So, it’s perfect. The thing that the challenge is that we do, we would do more events there, but it’s part of the Hilton chain. And there, I don’t think Bruce has a lot of leeway in how there’s no, there’s no like real nonprofit pricing to do events there. Actually, we did another one. I have to correct the record. We did another really cool event on ESG last June there. Fantastic turnout. Again, it’s a great, great place and space. So, if you can figure out if there’s something we can do with…
You know, I’ll pick your brain a little bit and I would love to see because Bruce is leading on me to do an event.
[AD] Of course he is. He leans on us.
[SH] For those who don’t know Bruce, this is Bruce Becker with Becker and Becker. And he is the developer and architect of Hotel Marcel.
[AD] Yeah. And he’s a very long time, I mean, he was a he was he’s been with Connecticut Green Building Council. I don’t know for how long. But and then of course he transitioned to I know he was a Connecticut Passive House member when we were two organizations. And now that we’re one organization, he’s a continuing member. So, he’s definitely in our orbit and super supportive of everything we’re doing here. So, yeah, we should I’m happy to talk with you offline and hear notes
Because he’s on our board now. He’s one of our board members and every board meeting that comes up, which I love. I’ve just got to figure it out. So, I look forward to that happening. And we’ll talk. Love to coordinate that do something with you. If it makes sense, you know, that would be terrific.
The other thing, what last thing I wanted to just highlight to them because a lot of people aren’t necessarily aware of it is that we have expanding, you know, there are certain passive house incentives out there for training and various stripes across the country. And we have, you know, continually looked to increase the offerings to make sure that it’s as accessible as possible. And so this I just put in our incentives page and just put a plug in to take a look at it. Oh, yeah, back in the back.
And one thing of note that may not I imagine there are definitely people and companies in Connecticut working. If any company is working, either builder or architect engineer consultant on a New York City HPD financed project, it doesn’t need to be a passive house project. It could be any affordable housing that HPD happens to be financing. You can qualify for either free CPHD training or free CPHT training. Which is incredible. And so we’re just trying to get the word out there. HPD, it’s really on HPD to reach out, but they’re like, we’re not sure who everybody is and everything. So, we’re trying to do our outreach too. What does
[AD] I actually don’t know what HPD stands for.
Oh, I’m sorry.
[AD] No, that’s okay. There’s so many acronyms.
Yeah, yeah. So, yes, it’s Housing Preservation and Development. And so they do rehab of buildings, but they also just finance new affordable housing construction. Then they rehab affordable housing. They’re generally not the sole financers, they’re part of a larger package of financing. But they have a big imprint. And they’ve a year ago, I think it was, yeah, a little over a year ago, they announced that they were moving towards passive house entirely.
So, right now, I think it’s, I don’t know what the percentage is, but it’s not a majority of the projects for sure are doing passive, but they’re going to push it all the way and just based on kind of fiat, just declaring it so.
[AD] Is that the link that you shared with this passive house network training dash financial incentives?
Yeah, that’s the financial incentives. So, if you scroll down to the New York one.
[AD] Okay. Yeah, well, the reason I asked is because we are doing a webinar on deep energy, exterior retrofits. And it’s and it happens to be on affordable housing. And actually, the person doing it is on our board. And the case studies are from Massachusetts, because obviously, our community often works across state lines. And so it would be a perfect opportunity for us, it’s the right audience to mention this. But so I want to that’s why I’m trying to sort this. So, are you showing us something?
[SH] Yeah. And certainly, there’s, you know, particularly the western half of Connecticut, certainly the southwestern portion, you know, does a lot of work in New York. So, collaborate on something like that.
So, I’m actually kind of shocked to look at the New York list in there. It looks like it’s the state stuff, because we have a great page. So, here’s one for the CPHD training.
[AD] And because what you were describing sounded different than what’s here.
[SH] That’s New York City. Oh, I mean, I’m driving, Ken’s not, so I was just hey. Wondering if it was sound.
Yeah, so I just put in the link to the actual page I can.
[AD] This is a great page. It’s got a lot on it.
Yeah, there’s a lot of different incentives. And, you know, and then what we did was we get a phone calls from time to time. Yeah, so this is the HPD specific page. We would get, you know, phone calls from time to time, like, you know, I’m a veteran, I’m a student, I’m a teacher, I’m a nonprofit, you know, employee. And so our kind of expanding categories of incentives. So, oh, yeah, we can do that. We can do that. We even have illegally fired federal employees incentive.
[AD] I actually saw that. I was like, wait, is that what I think it is? Oh, my God.
Well, just let it in there. I don’t think our board knows about that one.
[AD] Can you believe that you actually have that? Like you created that.
These are the times.
[SH] Also, the fact that there’s a need for it.
That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, it’s more a hidden message than anything.
[AD] Of course it is.
And what we had some person recently who’s unemployed and looking for relief and so on. The big one beyond the state and the state driven incentives or city driven incentives is our BIPOC incentive that came back from the beginning. So, this is a 50% discount with additional kind of support thrown in. And built as a fellowship and then following up and providing advice and everything.
[SH] So, is that something that The Network does yourself or are you getting?
Yeah, no, no, we do it ourselves. This is something we watch. There’s no lid on it per se, but we just need to make sure it’s a reasonable percentage of the overall thing. And so far so good. This term so far this year, I think we’ve had five folks, which is great. So, essentially if people are applying and if you click into the application, it’s really declaring your group status and your work and your commitment to sustainability and following through.
So, to be perfectly blunt, it was initially conceived to drive in the wake of the George Floyd murder to drive black professional participation in passive house to get it more equitable. But we didn’t feel like it was appropriate to just leave it at that. And so we opened it up across the full spectrum. So, we have a nice range of folks who are joining on that basis. Yeah, so just trying to find different ways to pull people in, get them to join the…
[AD] Get the bug become a passive house maniac.
Get the Kool-Aid distributed. There you go.
[AD] I had to like, I kind of looked at the passive house network website ahead of time and I have to ask you, there may be other people chomping at the pick to ask you a question, but talking about trying to get people to like, drink that passive house Kool-Aid. The moment I heard about the icebox challenge from our friends at Green Building United, I was like, that’s it. Like taking that and like that to me, like that demonstration to me has the power to speak volumes to like, again, legislators, people who just don’t get it. Right? And I’m curious, because I’m looking at your page and you’ve got the icebox challenge and it looks like it moves around and you’ve got launches and kickoffs and it changes locations. If I, you know, just to indulge us a little bit, and if you don’t mind, it just gives them a few minutes about how does this thing go on the road? What does it take? How do you… How does the state do it? If we wanted to do this, how would we do it?
Yeah, there are a few ways. I mean, we could talk. So, we… So, the icebox challenges had a few incarnations in North America. California had built one set for themselves for a conference a bunch of years ago that were used just essentially for the one event. And then the folks in Vancouver built a set of iceboxes that were meant to be taken apart and be mobile and move around. And those boxes were done there and then was taken on a road show, this was a bunch of years ago now, it’s Seattle and Pittsburgh, New York City, Washington, Philly. And that’s the boxes that are most of the events that people see, at least in North America, that are posted around.
[AD] For those who don’t know about the challenge, could you describe it in one or two sentences?
Oh, yeah, sure. I’m sorry. So, the icebox challenge is a simple physical demonstration of the principles of power, passive house, the power of passive house. So, you do it a bit like opposite day because you’re talking about keeping ice cold rather than keeping the space warm. But in the summertime where you’re hopefully going to have hot temperatures, you’re building one box. And it’s a box that’s big enough to stand in and have a couple thousand pounds of ice put in it. And one box to the passive house standard and one box to the building code, essentially. And you put the same equivalent amount of ice in both and you let them sit there for two weeks. And you’ve measured their weights before they go in so you know exactly where they were. And then you measure them at the end of two weeks. And depending on how hot it is, typically the code built ice could be completely gone or is a little pathetic pile. And the ice and the passive house ice is usually pretty robust and quite demonstrably different significantly. And you have the air tightness, you have the insulation, you have the good windows that are all built into this. So, you see that and can feel it, talk to people. So, over the course of the two weeks, there may be some events. You may do an event to kick it off at the beginning. There’s certainly an event at the reveal at the end. And you try to get some publicly minded people.
In Colorado, we did it in the lead up to the conference there. And we built a new set of boxes for that because the ones that had gone around previously were falling apart in a field in Pennsylvania, I think. And we started Fort Collins and I think at the reveal in Fort Collins, the mayor actually participated and helped announce and they were very into it. And then we did it in Lewisville, which just north of Denver, it was in the area that had the Marshall Fire took place in and had strong participation there. And then in Denver, we were able to have the space right in front of their big train station, Union Station in downtown Denver. And so there’s a lot of foot traffic, a lot of people just bumping into it, which is really interesting.
And yeah, so good conversations, it helps build momentum, excitement, it’s definitely a neat thing for sure.
[SH] That proves to me that education is everything. And it’s not preaching to the choir all the time.
No, not at all. And it’s unexpected. So, it has that element of surprise to it, which gets people’s attention. And so you have a moment to have their interest and talk about it and brings out different allies and whatnot.
But I will say it is a major logistical commitment. We had, for the ones in Colorado, we had Be Public prefab build the passive house box in New Mexico where their factory is. And they brought it up to Denver and or to Colorado. And then the folks in Colorado built the code, built one in Colorado in a space, this organization Build Strong. They had this warehouse space where they do vocational training around construction, which was a great fit in terms of doing that. And then moving them around, flatbed trucks, cranes, forklifts, whatever, mix of things, getting the ice, all of that.
[AD] It’s a whole lot of moving pieces and parts. You don’t just sort of take a lot of coordination is what I’m hearing. Yes. Planning.
Yeah, a lot of planning. We do have the boxes and we could. So, they’re supposed to go to Cincinnati. Well, I think they are in Cincinnati. They may be in St. Louis. But there’s going to be at least one in the Midwest this summer. I think I forget somebody else has shown interest for doing something in the late summer. So, as long as the boxes hold up, it’s possible that a good chunk of the work could be taken care of. And they kind of need to be repainted and touched up. You can kind of add insulation or take away insulation from the code one as needed. I guess you could too from the passive house one, but you don’t really need to. Yeah.
[SH] Maybe we can get on the list for next April 22.
[AD] I know. That’s kind of what I’m thinking. Like maybe, you know, that’s why I wanted to bring it up because I think it is something that I just I’ve never just seems like a huge potential win on so many levels.
Well, what I can do, I know we have. What I can do easily. Happy to talk about all of that going forward. But we had I think out of the last reworking of the ice boxes and planning for this year, we have a bunch of documents that are more refined about what they did, what was involved, logistics to think about kind of maps it out. So, happy to share that to get the ball rolling. Yeah.
[SH] That’s great. Well, we have a little bit of time left. I open the floor to anybody else who have any particular questions or reactions. Since we have Ken with us.
Hit me.
[LW] On the policy side, is there any movement towards energy rating systems for buildings from the network?
I’m not sure I understand the rating system beyond passive house.
[LW] Yeah. In other words, policy wise, if MLS and…
Oh, I see. Getting passive house included in the in like the MLS and what. We have not. It has come up from time to time. We have not had the person or the kind of like in road or it’s the right combination of factors to push on that.
[SH] We found that realtors are a tough crowd. To put it gently.
Yeah. So, I had the really interesting experience. So, I did get invited to speak and did this whole thing of passive house and like providing value to the property and everything and real estate terms and doing an introduction to passive house essentially at the national conference of the National Association of Realtors in Anaheim, California. And it was like entering a parallel universe in some ways.
But what was fun, it was kind of self-selective, right? Who shows up for my talk, which I can honestly say I did not come close to filling the room or anything like it, but it was a nice group of people and there were good questions. And then I went and joined the sustainability committee meeting at NAR there. And they were just saying to me on the side, like I was trying to get more context and background like four years, this was a couple of years ago and like four years, even as recently as four years before that, like you couldn’t say the word climate change or something. It was just verboten. So, anyway, but that’s different.
I mean, there are different MLS lists services too, right? And there’s got to be, and there has been headway, I mean, with the green audits and different aspects.
[LW] Yeah, the concept is simple. If people started thinking about it, there would be a certain level of competition. In other words, your house is or your building is worth more, more efficient.
Yeah. And to have a certain location, to show it.
[SH] Yeah, there’s data that’s sort of another version of the Icebox challenge to me, but it’s not as sexy to look at. A bunch of reports that say this house sold for more than that house. But the data is there. Yeah.
[LW] I would think Zillow is the one to hit because if they picked it up, MLS would have to follow.
[SH] from the side.
Because there are definitely techies that are into it. Yeah. Great idea.
[SH] Sort of related to the policy, I really like what you were talking about with disaster help. I mean, I’m imagining you could put together basically a playbook of what municipalities, legislator, code officials. Just anybody who touches rebuilding after a disastrous event can just look at and have it all laid out. It’s easier said than done, I realize.
Yeah, I’m smiling at Jill’s comment that they don’t want to sell their house. I know a number of past passes that have been sold and they don’t you know, it’s hard to know if they’ve been sold for more, but they’re certainly at the top of the market. And when you have an overheated market, it’s hard to know what’s what’s what.
But on the on the disaster support, I mean, what we’re really focused on, at least initially is kind of like the homeowner just having their whole world just disintegrate in front of them. And you know, what do they do next? If they are going to rebuild, like, you know, what are the steps and how to think about it and to not you know, what we saw after the Marshall fire, which I think it happens after all these natural disasters. You know, not a year after, like, there were a whole bunch of houses going up and they’re just getting thrown up slapdash, just no better than what was there before. And people just wanting to get back into their homes. And so that’s a really, you know, as fast as possible, which makes you know, you can totally understand that. So, how do you like get into that pathway?
And there were some families who were more methodical and took on passive house and did passive house and are real exemplars for doing that. So, that that’s more where we’re headed with it.
I think the design competition is hopefully going to feed into this idea of having more scalable models where it’s like you could, there’s a group, I forget the name of it, that’s putting together at least the word is they’re putting together like a catalog of you know, standardized home designs that would be legal for construction. In Altameda. And we want to get some passive house designs into the catalog.
[LW] I’m sure you’ve heard that Habitat for Humanity in Connecticut has been picking up passive house, which basically sets the example that you can build an inexpensive building that performs properly.
Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s great. It’s always, yeah, and Habitat has been a leader from the early days. That intersection is powerful.
[LW] And yet we still can’t shake up the legislators.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, just to opine it at the end of the day, it’s just, you know, construction is too expensive. Housing is too expensive. Everything’s too expensive. It needs direct incentives, right? Just straight across the board. Like everybody needs affordable housing. And without that kind of, whether it’s finance incentives, however it’s structured, it needs to be cheaper.
And so the, I mean, and now is the magic what Massachusetts did, right? With their building incentives. And I’m not sure I must, I’m not sure where Connecticut stands exactly at the moment, but the incentive, if the developers looking at it is cheaper to take the incentive and build passive house than to not take the incentive and build conventional, then you’ve, you know, you’ve made the leap. And it doesn’t have to be that much of an incentive because we know we can do passive house pretty close to regular construction.
[SH] Yeah, what the CHFA, Connecticut Housing Finance Authority years ago, and we were really paying attention to that, it was, there was a section about sustainable design and construction and reaching passive house gave you the most points. So, it gave you three points, I think. And then lower tier standards got fewer points. And that was enough to get our projects built.
[AD] I have a question and I hate to ask it at like, you know, 5:57, but I can’t not ask it because with these chaotic tariffs to here today, gone tomorrow, or, you know, TBD, or, you know, I mean, I do know of one developer who was looking to build to passive house, you know, standard using modular, and they’re just trying to figure out, you know, what, how all of this is going to potentially manifest or impact, it’s not a huge project, not a lot of units. But you know, even if you could say get the windows, you know, here, you’re going to get maybe a component that’s going to come from Europe. So, you know, how are what are you hearing or what are you what’s the buzz around the uncertainty of material cost?
Well, I’m supposed to have a meeting next week that I’m supposed to find out a lot more about that. But short of that, I will say, you know, with the materials, a lot of the stuff could be sourced in the United States, right? Materials are coming from Europe, the 10% tariff. I feel like it was asked before somebody who’s writing articles asked about it.
And, you know, my feel is that the passive house elements are kind of at the margins. I mean, obviously, if everybody’s trying to cut everything, wherever they can, and they see something as an extravagance, or it’s an extra, then it’s, you know, it’s potentially on the chopping block. But like optimizing passive house in general…
[JD shared https://475.supply/pages/response-and-commitments-regarding-tariffs]
oh, I gotta read that. Thank you, John. That’s what I meant. I’ve got to go have a meeting to find out.
[J] I mean, it’s, it can change multiple times in a single day right now. So, I mean, I think what you said, uncertainty is, I mean, that is, it’s all anybody can say right now is that it’s very uncertain.
Right.
[AD] Yeah. And I think what we’re starting to hear, we’re actually going to have a little sort of a small powwow this week, and then more to come. But to the, you know, it’s just how to gauge the to what degree it’s having a chilling effect on people’s either confidence and moving forward or, you know, it’s sort of like there’s a rhetoric and reality and like trying to find your footing and keep these projects moving forward, particularly depending on how far they are along and how committed the developer is or what’s the financial stacking or just there’s all these variables and it’s like, why are we, why are we doing what, why are we in this conversation? We know why we’re in this conversation. None of us want to be here.
Right. Right. But and to my point, which I think the 475 post goes to, it’s like, there’s a lot more than the ERV or the windows or the, you know, air sealing components, if those happen to be coming from Europe that are in play, like the lumber is a big thing. And we see, you know, who knows ultimately, but I was going to say was the optimization, I think it’s along the lines of, you know, making passive house affordable is about the optimization and the choices that you’re making in the design and what you want to deliver.
So, it may make it a higher bar for people to say, yes, I want that level of quality, but if they choose it, they can do it. It’s not going to, I think the cost increases will stay at the margin because it’s just not, when you look at a project’s costs and the line items, I mean, it’s just what is 10%, you know, 10% on top of whatever percentage it is. And that’s including labor. You know, that’s just not, it was just the material. It’s even a smaller percentage.
So, there’s going to be huge disruption. I don’t think it’s going to be about our ERVs and windows though. My personal opinion. Yeah.
[JD] Yeah. I think the only thing that I’ve been hearing scuttlebutt wise is just that there are some projects that are, that are trying to move faster right now to kind of that have been that are at a stage where they want to get finished. And so they want to, you know, I’ve got people ordering the next two project materials, right? Like things like that are happening because they’re hedging their bets and then other things may just be getting stretched.
And the other dynamic on here is like on the immigration things, we have a massive attack on our infrastructure, right?
Yeah. So, the labor costs are just that.
[JD] Unpredictable, you know, people are, people are just not showing up to job sites, right? You know, and so there’s going to be a stagnation there too. So, yeah, it’s awful. It’s a multiple whammy. However many whammies it is, it’s all the whammies.
[AD] Yeah. Multiple whammies for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you.
I mean, I think it’s important to just have these kinds of huddles and just share what we’re hearing or what we’re seeing and, you know, and just, I don’t know, our strength is what did someone say recently at like our strength is in our community and just kind of keeping those lines open and helping us helping each other get through this. Yeah. So, thank you. Thank you very much. It was great. A pleasure. This is fun.
[SH] Yeah. Thank you so much. That, that hour flew right by.
[AD] It did.
[SH] I think there was so many other things to ask you. We’ll have a, maybe we’ll touch base again.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do it. And look forward to following up. It’s good to, you know, it’s good to make contacts. So, get things in.
[SH] Maybe we can come up with some good collaborations.
[AD] Yeah. I sent you a LinkedIn, a request on LinkedIn just since we were not connected, but it’s an easy way to, I feel like we all get so many emails. So, that’s a great way if you want to, you know, just connect a little bit and chat about either Hotel Marcel or set up a meeting with, you know, I know that’s, you know, Sara might want to be involved in Trip, might want to be involved in that because, but I can certainly happy to share what I know. If you’re, you know, need any kind of just, you know, three times we’ve been there. So, I could speak from that experience.
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[LW] Thank you, Ken.
Thanks. Thanks everybody.
The Connecticut Passive House series occurs on second Mondays. Please drop in to any session you can.