Passive House Institute U.S. Taking the lead in North American research, training, professional and product certification Canadian Design and Construction Report special feature Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) has become a leader in North American research, training, profes- sional and product certification. It has developed cost optimized, climate specific passive house met- rics, instead of a single, one size fits all number. PHIUS also partners with other organizations including the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and RESNET to implement a third party quality assurance/quality control pro- tocol. PHIUS is rooted in a 2002 effort by German-born architect Katrin Klingen- berg, who set out to test whether the European derived passivhaus method- ology and standard could be applied successfully in the U.S. Beginning with her own residence in Urbana, Illinois, Klingenberg later founded e-colab Construction Labora- tory, which gained status as a Com- munity Housing Development Organization. This in turn made it eli- gible to work with the City of Urbana to build several single-family afford- able housing projects. Klingenberg and builder Mike Ker- nagis received great interest in train- ing from forward thinking architects and builders around North America, so they developed an English lan- guage curriculum and created the Cer- tified Passive House Consultant (CPHC®) professional credential. Recognizing the need for a national effort, they founded PHIUS under the e-colab umbrella to advance passive building in the U.S. and Canada. PHIUS began offering CPHC training around North America. PHIUS communications director Michael Knezovich says though PHIUS originally based its training and certified projects on the European standards, the institute quickly be- came aware of critical differences be- tween Central Europe, where the European standard was developed, and North American climates and mar- kets. “Some North American climates are simply more extreme, and gener- ally, humidity is a bigger issue. That, combined with a less regulated and less homogenous market, made qual- ity assurance and quality control a big- ger concern here than in Europe.” PHIUS concluded that passive methodologies (super insulation, air- tight envelopes, elimination of thermal bridges, energy recovery ventilation, etc.) are universally valuable and appli- cable, but it also concluded that the notion of a single target performance metric, though an attractive concept, simply didn’t fly. PHIUS also found that the German project certification requirements left way too much room for error and risk, so it set about de- veloping its own standards and certi- fication protocols. Understanding that the cost of components and renewables and other factors will inevitably change, PHIUS set a commitment to update the formula every three to five years. In 2015, it implemented its most re- cent effort, the PHIUS+ 2015 Climate Specific Passive Building Standard, the product of three years of research funded by the U.S. Department of En- ergy (DOE), and in partnership with the renowned Building Science Cor- poration. 42 – November 2015 — The Canadian Design and Construction Report “It produced climate specific target metrics that represent the sweet spot between aggressive energy conserva- tion and cost effectiveness,” Kne- zovich said. “It also provides designers a guideline on when to stop investing in the envelope and when it’s more cost effective to invest in re- newables. The new standard has been an enormous success, and has removed obstacles to adoption.” PHIUS also recognized that in the early days, architects and designers were having difficulty finding con- struction crews willing to take on something new and different. To meet that demand, it has developed the Certified Builder training program, which covers the unique construction management and risks that passive building presents. Since its inception, PHIUS has trained more than 2,000 professionals. “Meantime, the PHIUS+ program now earns DOE Zero Energy Ready Home and Energy Star 3 status. Proj- ect certifications have grown expo- nentially since it was implemented. In 2012 we had a dozen certified proj- ects. We’re up to 150, with a similar number in process.” He says since Klingenberg built her house in 2002, there has been a slow but steady acceleration of awareness