PassivHaus Alliance and Efficiency Vermont

As the only member of the group who doesn't drive a truck, Gerg was elected to drive the others to the PassivHaus Alliance monthly meeting this morning. So he spent about a half hour hunting for our Suby's rear seat. He thought it might be in the basement, or the woodshed, or perhaps on top of the RV, but it wasn't. Turns out he had put it in an old car about halfway down the drive. After removing some quantities of dog hair, he bolted it into the back of the wagon (after dark, unfortunately) and was ready to go.

They met at the Middlesex park'n'ride.  Malcolm and Indigo rode with Greg, and Chris followed them there. The meeting was held at the Efficiency Vermont offices on Lakeside Ave. in Burlington, an area of town that reminds me of SoHo back in the old days....artists' lofts in old warehouses, some grungy eateries, an industrial feel.

Gerg was introduced to Peter Schneider, Enrique, Sandra Head-buried-in-her-computer ( I promise I'll get her name later), Jeff Gephart and Chris West.  After the meeting, they moved to Peter's work area, where he met Matt Sargent, who will be assigned to consult on our certifications through Efficiency VT and to advise us on the details of our plans and assemblies.  They spent another hour and a half talking about assembly details, construction principles, and certification requirements. Many tips were offered, among them: Gerg got the name of a builder who uses the Siga line of tapes and membranes for sealing buildings (we've been looking solely at FourSevenFive so far); he also found out about a device, manufactured in Illinois, that will replace both the HRV and the minisplit! -- for not much more than the price of purchasing each device individually. More on this later. And they talked about the ability of dense-packed cellulose to handle moisture when used inside the insulation envelope of the walls and roof, about intelligent vapor membranes (sounds to me like great material for a sci-fi graphic novel), and a vent providing a rain plane in the roof.

Efficiency Vermont (EV) will be installing a real-time monitoring system in the cottage.  It will be available online for live monitoring of the cottage's parameters. EV will cover the cost of the equipment, plus a two-year internet subscription. Fabulous!

After Gerg got home, Chris came over and they continued their meeting of the previous day for another hour and a half or so.  After that, shortly after 5:00, John Picard, our excavator, came over to review the list of requirements, specs, the design of the sub-foundation and drains, etc.  He and Gerg walked the land (here's an earlier pic w/ Chris, John, me, and Bailey, our Great Pyrenees).
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The cottage site is emerging from the snow that was like this:

then melted down to this (exactly where the cottage goes)


and which is now down to this:


They talked about landscaping, too.  Sorry I missed that part. By the time I got home, John was already in his truck, accusing Gerg of having hid the really big rocks on him earlier in the season, and ready to head home to his creamed chipped beef. Gerg has known Johnny since the old days...maybe 35 years. He built our driveway, plowed it for twenty years until we bought a snowthrower (which he also disparaged), dragged my Honda out of the field after it slid off the road the first year I lived here ("Those rice buckets don't hold the road much, do they? Why don't you get yourself a Chevy?"). He dug the cellar for our current house, repaired the foundation after the original house burned down, and brought his excavator over to bury our 220-pound St. Bernard when he died suddenly of heat stroke one summer (pic below is his father, Snowshoe, who was smaller).
Things are heating up!  Glad we went away for three days!