The Hobson Place Phase 2 project has received PHIUS+ 2018 pre-certification from the Passive House Institute US. It will be the first permanent supportive housing project in Washington state to achieve Passive House certification from PHIUS.
Passive House measures serve to provide a comfortable and healthy living environment while expending as little energy as is cost effective. The third-party certification is objective and rigorous, aiming for a project that produces as much energy as it uses, and reduces overall energy use by around 40 percent.
Besides improving health and comfort for residents, significant reduction in annual energy use reduces the cost of operations over the life of the building and helps our region in meeting its climate impact goals.
It calls for five main improvements to standard construction: better floors, walls, roofs and windows that improve comfort while reducing draftiness and heat loss; more airtight construction that reduces air leakage and condensation risks while saving energy; continuous, balanced ventilation with heat recovery that provides filtered, fresh air in an efficient and comfortable manner; better domestic hot water equipment and design to deliver hot water quicker and in a more resource efficient manner; and more efficient lighting and electrical appliances that reduce energy use and internal heat gains.
PHIUS is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to making high-performance passive building the mainstream market standard. PHIUS trains and certifies professionals, maintains the PHIUS+ climate-specific passive building standard, certifies and quality assures passive buildings, and conducts research to advance high-performance building.