USING ULTRASOUND TO DETECT AIR LEAKS WITH COLTRACO'S PORTSCANNER® AIRTIGHT

Many Passive House design principles are invisible and they are designed into the fabric of the building itself, such as a high level of airtightness. With this in mind, we have developed Portascanner® Airtight, the world’s first micro air-leak detector, which uses ultrasound only.

This is the first time that one instrument can:

  1. Identify leak sites with a microscopic level of accuracy, and

  2. Measure and quantify them using sophisticated algorithms, and

  3. Generate a value for the air flow rate through each leak site, as well as

  4. Calculate the room or building’s overall air permeability and

  5. Store photographic and quantitative data to generate traceable, exportable reports.

SPECIAL PASSIVE HOUSE COMPONENT EPISODE: ADAM WHITE, INTELLIGENT MEMBRANES

Passive House Podcast cohost Zack Semke interviews Adam White, CEO and Founder of Intelligent Membranes, maker of the Passive Purple line of intelligent liquid membranes for Passive House airtightness and water and vapor management. Adam shares his background as a builder, the near-death experience that led him down the pathway to becoming a manufacturer of liquid-applied membranes, the many fruits of his serial entrepreneurship, and even a bit about the Magna Carta!

PARTEL'S VARA FLUID A CORE COMPONENT IN NYC PASSIVE HOUSE
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The Convivium, one of the developments to win one of New York’s Buildings of Excellence Awards in 2019, is an ambitious Passive House project on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The building utilizes the usual Passive House energy saving measures such as an airtight envelope construction, high efficiency variable refrigerant heating and cooling, condensing water heaters, and efficiency energy recovery.

SPECIAL PASSIVE HOUSE COMPONENT EPISODE: ADRIAN DYMARCZYK OF IKON WINDOWS + DOORS

In this special Passive House Component Episode, Passive House Podcast cohost Zack Semke interviews Adrian Dymarczyk, founder of Ikon Windows + Doors, a Champion Sponsor of Passive House Accelerator and supplier of high-performance European fenestration with a home base in the tri-state region of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. 

Adrian, who comes from a window family with European roots, talks about his unique journey to Passive House windows, shares his strategies for communicating about the value of high-performance windows as deliverers of comfort and health, talks about some of the cool projects he's working on, and reveals his plans for Ikon's future.

SPECIAL PASSIVE HOUSE COMPONENT EPISODE: PAUL GRAHOVAC AND PAT DOWNEY OF PROSOCO

In this special Passive House Component Episode, Passive House Podcast cohost Zack Semke interviews Paul Grahovac and Pat Downey of PROSOCO, provider of the R-Guard system of fluid-applied air and water barriers since the early days of the North American Passive House movement. 

Paul and Pat share how the R-Guard system was originally an outgrowth of building rescue work, how PROSOCO worked with the International Living Future Institute to remove phthalates from their product chemistry in order to be included on the Bullitt Center project, and how a recent code-built high school in Washington State became an "Accidental Passive House" due to the Passive House-level of airtightness that was accidentally achieved by the project team after they applied PROSOCO's fluid-applied membranes.

KEN KIEFER ON SIGA'S HIGH-PERFORMANCE CONSTRUCTION ACADEMY IN NEW ENGLAND
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I recently caught up with Ken Kiefer, High-Performance Construction Academy Director at SIGA North America (a Champion Sponsor of Passive House Accelerator), to speak with him about the training facility that SIGA opened recently in New Hampshire. Please enjoy this account of the interview, edited lightly for length and clarity. Ken shares about how SIGA’s mission is aligned with Passive House design and construction, the importance of a trained high-performance construction workforce, and his and SIGA’s work to help make that workforce a reality.