By Mary Beth Breckenridge
Beacon Journal staff writer
CLEVELAND: Walk through the front door of PNC SmartHome Cleveland, and you step into a new era of green building.
Funny thing is, it looks pretty much like any other new house.
SmartHome Cleveland is Northeast Ohio’s first passive house, a super-efficient structure designed to dramatically lower energy use. It was built on the grounds of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to serve as a temporary exhibit, but eventually it will be moved to a residential lot elsewhere in the city’s University Circle neighborhood and sold as
private housing.
The house opened for public tours this week and will remain open through Oct. 1.
The purpose of SmartHome Cleveland is to educate people about cutting-edge building technology and inspire them to incorporate it in their own homes, the museum’s executive director and chief executive officer, Evalyn Gates, said at the opening ceremony. But the house is also intended to show that highly energy-efficient buildings don’t have to look eccentric.
The exterior was designed as an updated version of a century home, so it will fit comfortably in its surroundings. Inside, though, the house is light-filled and contemporary, with Arts and Crafts accents to lend character.
A decorative arch crafted from three types of reclaimed wood separates the entryway from the great room, an open space that combines a kitchen, dining area and living room. Large windows in the front of the house let in the morning sun and fill the space with natural light.
(The front of the house currently faces east, but when the home is moved to its permanent site, it will face south, in keeping with standards for passive house construction.)
Two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a third bedroom outfitted as a home office share the second floor, including an airy master suite with plenty of room for sleeping and sitting areas.
Ecologically sensitive materials were used throughout the house, and even the furniture and artwork were made from recycled or sustainable elements. Among the home’s many green features are dual-flush toilets, a kitchen-island top made from recycled glass chips, oak floors reclaimed from a house in Cleveland Heights, kitchen cabinets made with wood-conserving manufacturing processes, an energy-efficient induction cook top and water-saving faucets.
But what’s most noteworthy about the house isn’t readily apparent.
The house has no furnace. It was designed to be warmed mainly by the sun, by its appliances and electronics and even by its occupants. Shading and ventilation are the primary means for cooling.
A small heat pump provides supplemental heating and cooling when needed, but that’s expected to be infrequent.
Three features are key to minimizing the need for artificial heating and cooling: airtight, superinsulated construction; an air-exchange system; and high-performance windows. Essentially the house is designed much like a giant Thermos, retaining warmth or coolness much better than conventional houses.
The triple-pane, argon-filled windows are designed to be airtight when closed and to open two ways to promote air flow. They were imported from Germany, because windows with such a high insulating value aren’t available yet in the United States.
The ventilation system expels indoor air continually and replaces it with air from outside, so the air in the house remains fresh and moisture doesn’t build up inside. The air exchanger also has a heat-recovery system that captures warmth from the indoor air before it leaves the house and uses it to warm the incoming air.
Even with outdoor temperatures in the low 80s, the house remained cool on Monday as the first group of about 50 visitors wandered through its rooms. The heat pump’s air conditioner was operating to offset the additional body heat from the crowd and the warm outdoor air that was coming in because the doors were being opened frequently, but that wouldn’t be the case with normal use, said Chris Kontur of CPK Construction in Northfield Center, which was involved in the construction.
The previous week, workers had labored in the house on a 92-degree day, and the building remained comfortable, Kontur said. ”No drafts, no hot spots, none of that,” he said.
The construction methods are expected to lop 90 percent off the home’s heating costs, compared with a conventional house. Mark Hoberecht, a passive-house expert who was a consultant on the project, has said he expects the heating bill to be less than $20 a month.
Generally, passive houses costs more to build than conventional housing — anywhere from 10 to 20 percent more, depending on which building professional you talk to. The SmartHome involved additional expenses and cost about $500,000, partly because it was built as a showplace and partly because it was specially constructed so it could be moved later.
Kontur said it would take a homeowner about 10 years to recoup the additional cost through energy savings. But he thinks he can narrow the price gap and he envisions building developments of passive houses.
Building a passive house involved a big learning curve, Kontur said, but he believes it needs to be the future of home construction.
”I’m convinced,” he said. ”And I’m a hard sell.”
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook.