Let’s Make Airtightness Normal
475 partner, Ken Levenson has penned a Snapshot Column for The Sallan Foundation titled Building Efficiency and Blower Doors: Essential Responses to Sandy calling for the NYC Mayor and City Council to...
View Article475 VIDEO: INTELLO Plus with Dense Pack Cellulose
This is high performance made easy. Thanks to the whole crew of cellulose professionals at National Fiber for their cooperation during our visit to their headquarters in Belchertown, Massachusetts....
View ArticleFakro Skylights, Passive House and The New York Times
Congratulations to Jennifer and Sloan Ritchie on the completion of their gorgeous new home, its Passive House Certification, and a beautiful feature in The New York Times Home & Garden Section...
View Article475 VIDEO: Cut / Peel / Stick
Starting to work with Pro Clima airsealing tapes? Check out our recommendations for making durable tape applications a cinch.
View ArticleUVA ecoMOD: Research Award Winner
Congratulations to the UVA ecoMOD team on winning an Architect Magazine 2013 R&D Award - including the UVA students, leader Professor John Quale, Passive House consultant Barbara Gehrung, Cardinal...
View Article475 Airsealing Master Class October 9th
The 475 Air Sealing Master Class is a one day course that provides full interactive immersion into the theory, details, strategies, and practical application of building enclosure air sealing....
View ArticleDWG Construction Details for Foam-Free Assemblies
475 High Performance Building Supply (475) works to make high-performance construction less complicated and more understandable – working to help you achieve the highest levels of success. In our...
View ArticlePHPP 8 (2013) Now Available: many improvements (hot/humid climate, workflow,...
The 2013 version of the Passive House Planning Package is now available at 475: PHPP 8. By incorporating recent research results by the Passive House Institute on high performance buildings in...
View ArticleLothar Moll: physics, ecology and building enclosures – making high...
Meet Lothar Moll, the founder and CEO of Pro Clima, the world leader in complete ecological airtightness and vapor control systems. Lothar will make a series of expert presentations from Boston to...
View ArticleReason Foam Fails #4 – Counterproductive Vapor Retarder
As insulation levels increase, building enclosures get colder and are more resistant to drying out – staying wetter longer, and posing greater risks for mold and structural damage. With the structure...
View ArticleRowe Hill: Foam-Free Deep Energy Retrofit (DER) by Maine Passive House
Jesper Kruse, founder of Maine Passive House, contacted us last Spring to discuss details on the renovation of his Rowe Hill house. We had recently finished our Foam-Free Deep Energy Retrofit (DER)...
View ArticleDWG Construction Details for Deep Energy Retrofit (DER) Foam-Free Assemblies
DER renovations are particular animals. While navigating often mysterious and disjointed existing assemblies, there’s much head scratching about how to achieve the long-term performance one wants with...
View ArticleLothar Moll’s East Coast Tour – Presentations and Snapshots
Lothar Moll, the founder and CEO of Pro Clima and inventor of Germany’s own award-winning line of high performance airsealing tapes and membranes, visited us here in the US for a whirlwind trip. Among...
View ArticleThe INTESANA Primer: The DER Solution
The INTESANA membrane, manufactured by Pro Clima of Schwetzingen Germany, is the state-of-the-art ingredient for Deep Energy Retrofit (DER) interior vapor control and air-tightness in cold and mixed...
View Article475 Visits LUNOS and LAMILUX Factories in Germany
Late this November 475 partner Floris Keverling Buisman headed to Germany to visit two of our manufacturers. 475 imports a selection of first class “Made in Germany” products, and visiting their...
View ArticleTight Historic Masonry Rowhouse Renovation by Caliper Studio
On Prospect Avenue in Brooklyn, NY, Caliper Studio‘s gut renovation of a brick ‘brownstone’ rowhouse used the typical Passive House project approach: very good triple-pane glass windows, thermal bridge...
View Article475′s 2013 Year in Review
It’s been a momentous year, and happily, there is plenty to reflect on and consider for the future of 475 and high performance building as a whole. We’d like to share some highlights as we charge up to...
View ArticleWhy Passive House?
This is a repost from the NY Passive House website blog, written by 475 partner Ken Levenson. Lloyd Alter, writing in Treehugger, concluded: “It is a pretty convincing argument that every building...
View ArticleKeeping Sheathing Dry in High-R Double-Stud Walls – a WUFI study
(The is the second installment in the 475 blog series 475 Does WUFI. ) Double-stud walls have become a popular and cost efficient way to build well-insulated envelopes: two 2×4′s spaced apart easily...
View ArticleThe GUTEX Wood Fiber Board Primer: vapor open continuous insulation & WRB
GUTEX wood fiber insulation boards are made with post-industrial recycled wood chips and shavings of spruce and pine. The boards are produced by using an innovative dry method, which is much less...
View Article