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Nov 08, 2023

Nearby ‘passive house’ costs $400 a year to heat and cool

ONANCOCK AS THE WIND gusted up to 30 mph, making the air on the Middle Branch of

ONANCOCK

AS THE WIND gusted up to 30 mph, making the air on the Middle Branch of Onancock Creek feel much colder than the mid-40s, Caleb and Anne Fowler basked in comfort inside their cozy 5,100-square-foot home.

It's not often that "cozy" and "5,100 square feet" go together, but when you’re a certified Passive House – with only 25 in the United States and the only one in Virginia – that's exactly how it feels. (The house is certified by Passive House Institute US.)

"This is the most comfortable house by far that we’ve lived in," said Caleb Fowler, an attorney/arbitrator for large commercial disputes.

So what is a passive house?

Many liken it to a Thermos keeping liquids hot or cold for hours, depending on what's inside.

They’re built nearly airtight with a bevy of insulation, Styrofoam, cell foam, loose fiberglass, situated south on a property for optimal sun exposure during the seasons with a fresh-air ventilation system that seems complicated by design but simple in practice.

This two-story house has triple-paned windows, a galvanized white roof top, a hurricane-resistant garage door, hardy-plank siding and fiberglass doors that swing outward, causing a more air-tight seal.

The Fowlers had other plans for Onancock, a small town on Virginia's Eastern Shore that they’d been visiting by boat for 35 years. They bought a 3,500-square-foot Victorian house by the water a couple years ago with a barn they wanted to move closer to the creek and transform into a home.

Caleb Fowler began researching energy-saving ways to retrofit the barn and stumbled upon a passive-house website. He was intrigued by this type of building that flourishes in Europe.

The tenacious Fowler learned all he could about the house and urged the builder who was refurbishing the Victorian to find out what he could by handing him a brochure about a passive-house seminar outside Chicago.

David Mitchell of Mitchell Custom Homes in Melfa on the Eastern Shore took that as a sign – and hopped a plane for the seminar two weeks later.

What ensued was a partnership between Mitchell, the Fowlers and a certified passive-house consultant from Northern Virginia, who was hired to help with the building's "math and science," Mitchell said.

Within a year, the Fowlers moved all their belongings from their Westover, Md., home to their new spacious passive house, which includes 4 1/2 baths, a workout room, an upstairs den, a room for Anne Fowler's artwork and a bedroom for their grandchildren.

Caleb and Anne Fowler said the decisions that went into building the house were complex. For Mitchell, he said his first passive house was a "cake-walk."

A look at passive houses online show somewhat sterile inside, boxy outside modern houses with a 23rd-century feel.

Caleb Fowler, who designed the house, said his brother dubbed "Branch's Bend," what the Fowlers’ named their house and property, "neo-traditional."

The structure is basically four boxes oriented specifically on the waterfront property to make sure the house stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter, Caleb Fowler said.

For example, it's easier to wrap a box in Saran Wrap than shapes with more intersections and angles, Mitchell said.

From the minute you enter the house through the deep-purple front door, a vibrant painting of an American Indian greets you, then the warmth.

Layers of clothes are unnecessary in the spacious house with its varied ceiling heights of 8, 10, 12 and 20 feet, depending on where you are. Even though the thermostat was set on 62 downstairs, the temperature gauge read 69; the air felt much warmer.

"You’ll never feel air moving around the house," Caleb Fowler said. And you won't hear it blowing outside, either.

Occasionally, the couple will need to open up one of their French doors to cool down the inside.

"Theoretically, you could heat the entire house with a hair dryer," Caleb Fowler said.

The couple hasn't had to turn on the heat more than five or six times this winter, they said.

In addition to the house's orientation on the lot, 11-inch walls from outside to inside (more than double the construction of a typical single-family home), and what's in between, keep the seal airtight.

Before drywall is installed, the insulation is tested with an air blower for leaks. Only a couple areas needed additional insulation before the drywall was put up, Mitchell said.

As for the house's shell, it has very few breaks to the outside world, a dryer vent with a high-quality flap, an exhaust vent for the tankless hot water heater, and an intake and exhaust vent for the house's Energy Recovery Ventilation, or ERV, system, which keeps the fresh air coming in, and the "moister-laden stale air" flowing out, according to Mitchell.

The downstairs floor is 5 inches of concrete covered with earthy porcelain tiles. Heated water pumped through tubing underneath the tiles – hydronic radiant flooring – keeps the porcelain warm.

With all this in place, the Fowlers house costs about $370 a year to heat and cool, or about $31 a month.

As for air-flow, the German-engineered ERV is one of the five main components of a passive house to make it work, Mitchell said.

The others are the super insulation, the airtight seal, the path of solar orientation of the home and the thermal free-bridge construction, which means that the wood used in the walls doesn't allow outside temperatures to penetrate through the walls or roof into the inside living space, Mitchell said.

The ERV runs on a fan.

"There is no big compressor part," Mitchell said, so, "it does so much work for very little energy."

People ask the Fowlers whether they live in a "sick house" because it's air-tight.

The ERV system exchanges air in all rooms two to three times an hour, Caleb Fowler said, the equivalent of having a window open at all times.

During the summer, the humidity within the house stays at 40 to 45 percent, Caleb Fowler said.

Two vents in a downstairs bathroom look different than a typical fan that runs and pulls moisture out of the room. The vents lead directly to the ERV upstairs.

The Fowlers also bought the most energy-efficient appliances they could find, installed bamboo floors upstairs and put in a tankless hot water heater to add to the house's green footprint.

Onancock residents got a chance to visit the couple's house for the first time during the town's annual Christmas

Homes Tour & Music Festival.

Said Caleb Fowler, "I think most people…"

"Thought we were crazy," Anne Fowler finished as the couple laughed.

Many, they said, were in awe after the holiday tour.

People could overlook the creek through huge windows facing the water. The master bedroom and main living room glow in sunlight. The couple's three dogs, Zippy, Floyd and Lady, run the house. The canines even get cleaned up from outside romping in their own dog-washing station inside the house.

Mitchell won't talk price, nor will the Fowlers, other than to say it cost about 15 percent above what a custom built-home from Mitchell would cost.

It's hard to assign a value to "simply being comfortable" in your own home, Caleb Fowler said.

"This has really turned out great," he said.

Lynne Fowler agreed.

"Why didn't we do it 20 years ago?"

Toni Guagenti,[email protected]

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