By Tabitha Johnston, The Shepherdstown Chronicle
SHEPHERDSTOWN — In June, Sean and Tracey Porter will be moving into their new home at 312 W. German St. in Shepherdstown.
This home is special to them for a number of reasons, such as that it will be the first home they have built and that it will be in a walkable town that has already begun to feel like home to them. However, for the Porters, the most exciting thing about their new home will be the fact that it is a passive house — an energy-efficient home, constructed with comfort, affordability and the need to keep a low carbon footprint in mind.
“The Porter residence is a great example of a passive house,” said architect Richard Pedranti, who designed the project. “Passive houses are really still a boutique kind of approach to designing a home here in the U.S. In Europe, they say they have half a million homes built to the passive house standard. In North America, it’s probably less than 50,000.”
For the past 12 years, Pedranti has been designing passive homes, although this will be one of the few located in a historic town. The location feels particularly appropriate for a passive house to be built in, he said, due to its deep German roots, as the first passive house was built in Germany in 1991.
This connection between Germany and passive houses is, in fact, what led the Porters to choosing to build a passive home of their own.
