INSIDE a Passive House Expert's DIY Retrofit

Join Mary James as she guides us through the DIY retrofit of her once leaky and uncomfortable Marin County house into an energy-efficient and fire-hardened haven. Mary's renovation occurred in two phases: a stepped Passive House retrofit to the EnerPHit standard, followed by a second phase of electrification and fire-hardening.

[danielclarkearchitect]

Thank you for sharing! This is a tremendous lead that you've shown, which so many people could follow - especially since it's applicable to existing construction.

[RichTCS]

Wow, this is excellent! Great progress on a home that had so little to offer from an energy efficiency/comfort standpoint. As I prepare to move to a new state, I'm hoping that I can find a home that I will be able to similarly transform.

[rwchesnut]

I'm planning to start shopping for a new house soon. I hope to do a Passive House retrofit on it. Could you do a video to help people like me? I need to know what types of houses are easiest to retrofit and which are hardest to retrofit. Of course each house is different, but are there any major red flags?

[DavidEdwards-ebh]

Nice job. Congrats on your home hardening. Note: if your "Carbon" filter is an activated carbon(AC) filter, it will be very expensive and using it as a prefilter is wasting that money, as a prefilter is a cheap filter compared to the higher Merv filters and AC filters it was designed to protect. The AC filter should be put after your particulate filter(~Merv 13+) which should be after the prefilter(~Merv 8 rating, prefilter rating should be below the particulate filter rating ). That way your AC filter is protected from clogging with particulates and it can bond to the reactive chemical species it is designed for.