Army planning energy-efficient housing

[unhappycamper]

A passive energy house in Darmstadt, Germany. The Army plans to build similar energy-saving houses in a new housing area to be built for U.S. Army Garrison Ansbach.


Army planning energy-efficient housing
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, January 9,2009

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — The Army is experimenting with a new kind of power-saving house that uses about one-quarter as much energy as most new European homes.

Plans call for 22 "Passivhaus" homes to be built as part of Phase I of a 520-unit military housing area next to Shipton Barracks in Ansbach, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager Jim McPeak.

The new homes will cost 10 to 20 percent more than ordinary houses to build, but the energy savings — mostly the decreased cost of heating — mean the extra construction cost will be recouped within a couple of years, he said.

A report in the New York Times last month estimated there are about 15,000 passive houses worldwide, mostly in German-speaking countries and Scandinavia.

According to Germany’s Passivhaus Institute, "A passive house is a building in which a comfortable interior climate can be maintained without active heating and cooling systems. The house heats and cools itself."


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59888