Passive House Minnesota is holding a 3-week demonstration to
show fair-goers how to stat cool, cost-efficient, and comfortable
in the late summer heat.
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 5, 2024
/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- This August, up to 2 million people will
attend the Minnesota State Fair, and all of them will have the
chance to interact with a unique display that underscores the
importance of high-performance design in our everyday
buildings.
"Energy efficiency, utility cost savings,
comfort, and indoor air quality are already topics on Minnesotans'
minds. Passive House combines all of these benefits and has a long
track record of delivering them in our state."
The Ice Box Challenge is an international exhibit that tests the
extreme energy efficiency of Passive House building standards.
Other organizations have held similar challenges around the world,
including at popular public destinations in Belgium, Australia, Canada, and, most recently, India. This year, Passive House Minnesota, a
Chapter of The Passive House Network, is bringing the exhibit to
the Minnesota State Fair.
No matter where in the world the event is held, each challenge
features a few common elements, namely two boxes, each holding
2,000lbs of ice. This challenge features one box built to the
upcoming Minnesota residential
code, while the other box is built to the highly rigorous standards
of Passive House. Fair-goers will be able to see both boxes outside
of the Xcel Energy Eco Experience building, where they will be left
exposed to the sun–and the heat–for three weeks.
"Locating the Ice Box Challenge at the Minnesota State Fair, and
more specifically at the EcoExperience with the help of Xcel
Energy, enables us to expose hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans
to the energy savings and comfort of Passive House," said
Tim Eian, founder of Passive House
Minnesota. Eian is a Certified Passive House Designer and has
designed many Passive House homes in the region with his firm, TE
Studio. "Energy efficiency, utility cost savings, comfort, and
indoor air quality are already topics on Minnesotans' minds.
Passive House combines all of these benefits and has a long track
record of delivering them in our state, which is home to some of
the first certified Passive House projects in the nation."
The ice will go in the box on August 13th–before the Fair
officially opens to the public–while the reveal will take place on
September 2nd at 2 PM, where attendees will be able to see how
much ice–if any–is left in each box. The amount left serves as a
representation of how well each building standard keeps its
interior at a comfortable temperature without air conditioning.
Keeping ice cool in the summer is more easily visualized than
keeping a Minnesota hotdish warm.
Insulation and air sealing work both ways in a building—whether
that's keeping the heat or the cold out. Therefore, keeping the ice
intact for as long as possible illustrates the power of a
super-insulated and air-sealed Passive House building.
In addition to visiting the exhibit and attending the reveal,
there are plenty of ways for fair attendees to interact with the
Challenge. Certified Passive House Designer and Architect
Marcy Conrad Nutt and Certified
Passive House Tradesperson and Union Carpenter John Notermann will
schedule open hours during the fair to answer questions about
Passive House. Attendees will also be invited to enter a contest to
guess how much ice will be left in each box by the end of the
demonstration. Successful guesses will be awarded with prizes, such
as t-shirts and a Passive House design book.
The Minnesota Ice Box Challenge is sponsored by Xcel Energy.
For more information on the Ice Box Challenge, visit
www.passivehousenetwork.org or email
kim@passivehousenetwork.org.
About PHN:
The Passive House Network (PHN), formerly known as NAPHN, is a
501(c)3 that provides Passive House high-performance building
education and resources to professionals across the U.S. that
transform how they think and work with buildings. PHN provides
professionals a complete skill set to reliably produce new and
renovated buildings that use dramatically less energy for effective
and affordable climate action. https://naphnetwork.org/
About Passive House:
Passive House is an international building standard and
methodology, applicable to buildings of all kinds from office
buildings to hospitals, new-build and renovations, that results in
a dramatic drop in operational energy use, and more comfortable and
healthy occupants - meant to aggressively mitigate our climate
crisis while providing resilient adaptation.
The Passive House Standard was developed by the Passive House
Institute (PHI), an independent scientific research organization,
located in Darmstadt, Germany, and
includes specific requirements for energy use and comfort of
occupants. The Passive House Standard is being successfully applied
to thousands of buildings and millions of square feet around the
world, from Boston to Beijing.
Media Contact
Kim Ravold, The Passive House Network, 1 609 410 1308,
kim@passivehousenetwork.org, passivehousenetwork.org
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SOURCE The Passive House Network