Page 21 - Green Builder January 2017 Issue

BY LARRY LINDNER

BUILDING A HOME up to standards required to be deemed
“passive” might make some builders cringe. But when the
Valle Group (www.vallegroup.com) received such a request,
it was almost par for the course. The Cape Cod, Mass.-
based builder specializes in carefully planned, energy-
efficient homes.
Mike Katon, Valle Group’s senior project manager, says the
company had already built a passive house, and thus knew about
items such as super-thick insulation and the membranes required
to keep a building airtight, as well as the risk of a seemingly minor
occurrence like a nail puncture in the home’s wall cavity.
The learning curve for building a passive house was “probably
not as steep for us as it would be for some builders,” he admits. The
bigger challenge was what homeowner Hank Keating wanted the
Valle Group to do with it.
“(Keating) had some very unique ideas for his one-of-a-kind
home,” Katon says. Those included a lengthy solar-warmed corridor

This unique home’s PHOTO CREDIT: JON MOORE
smart and solar bells PHOTO CREDIT: JESSICA DELANEY
and whistles reduce No dryers allowed. A solar corridor that links separate sections of
its ecological the house doubles as the clothes-drying room.
footprint even more.
(LEFT) Follow the sun. Stone Fruit Farm’s north-south positioning
enables its solar array to operate at top efficiency.

January/February 2017 GREEN BUILDER 19