With many states incentivizing housing built to the Passive standard, everyone wants to know: are Passive-certified multifamily buildings really achieving better energy performance? The answer is yes. With many built multi-family passive projects throughout the Northeast, there are now multiple occupied projects where we can look at actual energy performance data, sometimes over multiple years. Using Passive project data from built projects in MA and PA, we will compare post-occupancy performance and cost to similar above-code and code built projects.

Retrofitting vacant and underutilized historic buildings to PHIUS standards leverages an existing building’s embodied carbon, which combined with low carbon and carbon storing materials, can transform our historic buildings into carbon sinks. With careful consideration, the Federal Historic Tax Credit program can provide an additional source of funding for these ambitious Passive House projects. Currently under construction, Moran Square is one of the first PHIUS Historic Tax Credit projects in the US. The site includes a historic firehouse, a vacant lot, and historic three-story building.

Current ventilation standards are based on odor instead of health. One cannot smell healthy air. Ventilation standards disfavor air quality in smaller residences and multi-family dwellings while excessively ventilating larger homes. Ventilation impacts our health, cognition, sleep, and disease transmission. This session provides background on today's ventilation standards and recommendations for creating healthy indoor environments. The Covid Safe Space IAQ calculator for reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in buildings is introduced.

Sheridan Small Homes is a project that originated in the classroom at the Rhode Island School of Design. The two passive house prototype student designs were created as a solution to increase affordable housing and make use of 200 undersized vacant lots in Providence, RI. The homes were funded through a combination of energy grants and incentive programs and were built by an apprentice training program that provides valuable work experience and career opportunities for low-income diverse community members.

Beach Green Dunes I and Beach Green Dunes II are two of the largest multifamily Passive Houses in the country. They are adjacent to each other in the Rockaways in NY (in the flood zone) and were completed two years apart. Although they look almost identical, they are very different under the hood. Each has a different structure, envelope (ICF vs Block), ventilation strategy (Unitized vs Centralized), and heating and cooling system (VRF vs. ground source heat pumps) along with several other differences due to changes in city regulations and varying site conditions.

Boston’s proposed building emissions performance standard would set carbon emissions targets for existing large buildings that decrease over time. The targets align with the City’s 2030 goal of a 50% reduction in emissions from 2005 and its 2050 goal of net zero emissions.

High performing buildings consume considerably less energy and water than conventional buildings. Through energy modeling and water use projections, design teams have been able to calculate the amount expected to be saved during the design phase. However, not much has been done to circle back and compare these projections to actual performance. This pilot study compares actual operating results to predicted in 21 public buildings in Massachusetts to learn how accurate these projections are.