Eco-Friendly Apartments: Passive Housing | Real Estate and Rental ...

passive housing apartments

Tonu Mauring Source: Flickr

Imagine marketing your apartments with the appeal of virtually no heating or cooling bills ? for you or your resident. It almost sounds too good to be true, but this concept is a reality with a rising green housing trend: passive housing. Passive homes are designed to harness energy from the sun?s heat. The buildings are designed so that the need for a furnace, fireplace, or other heat source is eliminated. Passive housing has a proven track record in Europe (more than 15,000 buildings have been remodeled to passive housing standards as of 2010) and the trend is now trickling into the U.S., where it?s taken a strong hold in Brooklyn, NY. Here?s a little bit more about the newest eco-friendly housing trend, which will probably be here to stay.

What is Passive Housing?

The Passive House Standard is the most stringent residential energy efficiency standard in the world, originating in Germany and regulated by the Passive House Institute. The focus of this type of structure is to lower a home?s energy consumption and reduce the energy use for heating a building.?The structures consume 60-70 percent less energy and 90 percent less heat than conventional structures. This is done by focusing on insulation: constructing an airtight building, with triple-glazed windows, super-insulation, and airtight building shell. Think of a passive structure like a thermos, where a comfortable interior temperature is maintained by using heat from the sun (passive solar design).

Is a Passive Housing investment financially worth it?

In climates where heating bills are costly, it can be well worth your budget to convert your building into a passive house. Because of it?s design (or focus on insulation), the building easy to maintain once the property is retrofitted. Passive housing uses old-fashioned building science as opposed to high-tech turbines or solar panels that can be expensive to buy or maintain. USA Today reports that Passive Homes cost six to twelve percent more than other new homes, but recoup their cost in seven to twelve years. By eliminating the need for heating equipment, property owners can drastically improve energy savings. Passive housing designers claim that it?s the most cost-effective renovation to reduce energy use.

Renovating your property to Passive Standards

Luckily, making a multifamily property qualify with passive housing standards is much easier than retrofitting a detached single family home. The requirements are easier to reach in large commercial spaces, schools, and apartment buildings. Basic measures include superinsulation, with focus on thick walls and roofs; high-quality windows to prevent heat from escaping; airtightness by sealing cracks, joints, and ducts; and a strong ventilation system. By reinforcing these qualities in your property, you can make any building achieve high eco-friendly standards.?Talk to a Passive Housing-certified builder to see how you can remodel your property to appropriate standards.



Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/pro/2012-12-10/eco-friendly-apartments-passive-housing/

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