Building a high performance home

Summary

Building a High Performance Home Nov 8, 2025 39 minute read Version 0.86 Double stud walls provide a thermal break between studs. In 2018, I set out to build a high-performance home, unfeasible in the Bay Area, so a couple years later I moved to the East Coast to find land. Finding a House The problem with living in desirable places is it can be difficult to acquire land. I demanded walkability, further narrowing the market. If the acquisition target is a tear-down, it will be as appealing to the local builders as it is to you. In the Boston area, I spent a considerable amount of time writing letters to people with extra land or who might be close to selling their, sorry to say, tear-down. It was looking bleak in 2021 and 2022, so I moved down the coast when I found a house that was in the middle of everything, walkable, and had parks, restaurants, and coffee shops. The first step was to meet with the code official to see if what I wanted to do possible. They speculated it was, but that I should have a surveying contingency. Fortunately at that time the market looked like it was on the way down so the seller agreed. It was possible to build the rectangle I wanted so the sale proceeded. Finding an Architect and Builder A lot of the legwork for this house started ahead of time. Once I got serious about acquisition I already had a list of resources to get the process going. The problem is that without a house you can’t plan. I discovered on the DOE website a list of zero energy home builders. From that I contacted two and one was interested. Common advice is to get an architect reference from a builder or a builder reference from an architect you like. The architects that the builder recommended were good, but I didn’t have 6 months to sit around waiting for plans. I read that 4-8 weeks isn’t impossible, so that was my goal. Around this time the builder gave me a gift: Pretty Good House, a book about building homes that approach passive house standards. I contacted one...