Milton Planning Commission
Subject – Elm Place Passive House tour
Figure 1 Roof showing other guests,
solar and HVAC.
Fellow commissioners, Friday 7/21 I had the pleasure of
participating in a tour of Elm Place sponsored by the NESEA (New England
Sustainable Energy Association). Elm
Place is Vermont's First Multifamily Passive House. A passive house must meet strict energy
requirements and testing:
As compare to a LEED certification, which is more about
sustainability and energy is just one (important) element.
The challenge to building a passive house is not being
“business as usual”. Suppliers must look
into their more advanced products, sub-contractors require some additional training
and oversight. The biggest challenge was
said to be integration and commutation.
You cannot have framing (done), drywall (done), heating (done), but
these must all work together to maintain the building envelope. A chain is only as strong as the weakest
link.
The added cost was 1% in material and 1% in consulting and
licensing for a total of 2%. This will
be paid back with energy saving in the first 5 years of operation, along with
the less tangible resident comfort. The
building is expected to use 95% less heating than one built to RBES and 65 less
total energy.
All parties talked of how much they learned, which will make
the next project that much smoother. The
HVAC (Mitsubishi mini splits) was overbuilt because the contractors “did not
believe the numbers” regarding heat loss.
Also, each apartment has two thermostats which can be fighting each
other.
They have 22k of solar, room on the roof for at least that
much again.
The building was sold out within three weeks of opening.
The Cathedral Square rep said this site was chosen because
of the availability of all the services the residents would want (pharmacy,
grocery, park, senior center mentioned) and yet still in a low traffic
area. She mentioned they very much liked
the direction the DB1 was going. This
was w/o prompting on my part, I had just asked “why here”.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Bonges III
