Passive home construction aims to ease impact of wildfires, extreme heat in Sacramento
SACRAMENTO — A new kind of home construction is coming to Sacramento to help battle the impact of extreme heat and wildfires.
The certified passive homes are built to meet a high standard for air quality and low energy use.
Andrew Turner is the CEO of GoodSpace High Performance Builders and is the home builder behind Sacramento's first-ever certified 'passive home.
Passive homes are designed to heat and cool themselves and are sealed tight to protect the living space from bad air quality outside. The difference in these healthier homes isn't what they look like on the outside, it's what they're made of on the inside.
Turner showed the insulation. In some passive homes, it is made of sheep wool, wine cork, and hemp. The materials meet California building codes.
"People can understand it easy enough, right, but it's different," Turner said. "It's not how we've been doing it."
Turner's decision to help bring the first certified passive home to Sacramento comes after the nasty air quality here during recent megafires.
Following the Camp Fire, air quality numbers in Sacramento registered as the worst in the world.
"We were driving around with respirators on and it was just terrible," Turner said. "That's when I really realized the advantage of these homes."
Sacramento is required to build 5,700 new homes a year to keep up with state guidelines. Turner hopes his first certified passive home will be the first of many more in years ahead.
"I think everyone should have the ability to live in a house like this," Turner said.
This home builder has the plans to make it happen. Now, we'll see if Sacramento homeowners buy into this climate-conscious construction.