Home Energy

Glenn Rockman and his longtime partner, Darron Berquist, love many things about their 3,700-square-foot home off Route 9 in Philipstown (shown above): the quiet woods, the modern architecture, the river views.

They also love their electric bill: $21.50 a month.

The bills could be lower, but Central Hudson requires a basic service charge to be hooked up to the grid. The one time the bill was higher, it was because they had accidentally left the air conditioning on for 10 days while on vacation. The only gas the home uses is propane in a backup generator.

This is all possible because Rockman and Berquist live in a certified Passive House, one of a growing number of ultra-efficient homes whose solar panels generate more power than the owners use.

Rockman said they are hooked up to Central Hudson only as a precaution; occasionally, on hot days, the 9-kilowatt solar panel doesn’t generate enough power to cool the house. But more often, it’s sending electricity to Central Hudson and using a net meter to stockpile credits. Rockman expects to soon replace the backup generator with a whole-house battery that can store the excess production.

Budget Busters
Federal law could raise electricity costs

By Brian PJ Cronin

If you’re considering making your home more energy-efficient, act now.

The federal budget bill signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4 will eliminate tax credits for solar panels, heat pumps, induction stoves, insulation and energy-efficient windows after Dec. 31. It also will eliminate, as of Sept. 30, a tax credit of up to $7,500 for buying or leasing an electric vehicle.

The law could lead to higher utility costs because it kills many industry subsidies for wind, solar and large-scale batteries, which made up more than 90 percent of the new energy added to the grid. The REPEAT Project at Princeton University estimates 30 gigawatts that would have been generated by wind and solar annually may be lost.

“Renewables are the cheapest source of new electricity generation, with or without the tax credits that the bill phases out,” said Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Although the cost of installing solar and batteries has fallen by 90 percent over the past decade, and wind costs have fallen by 70 percent, the bill “will put a damper on new renewable and energy storage investment over the next decade, which is going to mean less new cheap, clean power getting added to the grid, and higher electricity prices,” she predicted.

At this point, “we can’t build enough new fossil plants to fill the void that might be left by killing renewables,” she said. Due to supply-chain issues, there’s a backlog of up to seven years for natural gas turbines, for example. Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced plans to build more nuclear power plants upstate, but that won’t happen immediately: The most recent nuclear plants built in the U.S. were years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

“Renewables and storage are the only resources available to be deployed today at reasonable cost,” said Levin. “We won’t be able to build new, unexpected, unplanned investments in other types of non-clean energy at least until the 2030s.”

The budget may mean fossil-fuel plants scheduled for retirement will need to stay open. Over the next few decades, electricity demand is expected to increase by 25 percent, primarily due to the growth of data centers.

Relief could come at the state level if New York moves forward with a “cap-and-invest” plan, said Kobi Naseck, director of programs and advocacy for NY Renews, a progressive coalition. The program was announced by Hochul in 2023; corporations that produce more pollution than allowed would pay penalties that fund the state’s climate plans and rebate checks for consumers.

NY Renews forecasts that a cap-and-invest program could produce savings of up to $2,000 a year for households earning less than $200,000 annually.

In Cold Spring, Chelsea Mozen said her Passive House on High Street also routinely generates no electric bill. The same is true of the Main Street office of River Architects, which specializes in passive construction.

Passive houses rely on several conservation principles, said James Hartford, who co-owns the firm. The first is airtight construction, achieved by sealing joints and penetrations such as wall outlets, plumbing and ductwork, to trap heat. Doors are often 4 inches thick, with multiple latching points and rubber gaskets that create a vault-like seal. Even nail holes are sealed with caulk. If you want to hang a picture on the wall of a Passive House, you’ll need an adhesive mount.

To be certified by the Passive House Institute, a blower test must show that the air inside changes no more than 0.6 times per hour. By comparison, for homes built before 2016, the standard used to be seven changes an hour. Since then, the standard building code has required three changes an hour.

To remove odors and avoid carbon dioxide poisoning, passive houses use mechanical heat recovery ventilation systems, Hartford said. The systems let in outside air, but only after the outgoing air has warmed it. These heat exchange systems are up to 95 percent efficient. In addition, “the air is super clean,” noted Rockman. “There’s no dust.”

Passive Houses also have tons of insulation. The walls are up to 2 feet thick, more than double that of most homes, and have up to four times the wall and attic insulation. Foundations have a layer of insulation between the slab and the ground. Windows have three or four panes in addition to a layer of inert gas to improve thermal performance. (Most standard homes use double-paned glass.)

With all the insulation and air tightness, passive homes don’t need large heating and cooling systems, said Hartford. “We have two little heat pumps upstairs [at River Architects] that do all we need for heating and cooling. The building stays warm by itself through solar gain, people and computers.”

Passive house homeowners give up certain amenities. Rockman wanted larger windows, for example, but they were too inefficient. He insisted on a fireplace, although they’re discouraged. The fireplace has a glass door to maintain an airtight seal when they’re not enjoying a fire. “Even burning one log can dramatically increase the inside temperature,” he said. “The house just retains so much heat.”

The Rockman-Berquist home is one of about 1,500 homes and apartment buildings nationwide certified by the Passive House Institute. New York City has almost 2,000 units in certified Passive apartment buildings.

The passive-house movement dates to the 1973 oil embargo, when energy prices skyrocketed. Engineers and architects at the University of Illinois designed a “Lo-Cal” house that consumed 60 percent less energy. A German physicist, Wolfgang Feist, refined the ideas in the 1980s and founded the Passivhaus Institute to promote low energy usage standards.

Thanks in part to the work of River Architects, Philipstown has four certified Passive Houses, including three in the Village of Cold Spring. Hartford said many more homes have been built using passive principles but haven’t gone through the rigorous and costly certification process.

“This is an ‘almost’ Passive House,” said Joe Meyer, whose 3,500-square-foot home is near the West Point Foundry Preserve in Cold Spring. He pays about $150 to $200 a month to Central Hudson. There is no gas bill. His electric bills are already so low that adding solar panels wouldn’t help much. That calculus could change, he said, if he were to buy an electric car.

Passive homes cost five to 10 percent more to build, without accounting for the utility savings. With economies of scale, the cost of building passive multi-family buildings is approximately the same or slightly higher than that of non-passive construction.

Michael Robinson, a Cold Spring contractor specializing in passive house construction, noted that it is well-suited for low-income housing. “You’re building apartments that have little or no utility costs,” said Robinson, who retrofitted a three-family building in Newburgh. “For people on a fixed income, it’s incredible.”

Low-Energy, Built by Hand
Putnam Valley couple transforms cottage

If Roberto Muller and Mia Klubnick’s home renovation in Putnam Valley were a reality show, it might be called Toxic Cottage.

That’s because when they inspected the 1,000-square-foot, white clapboard structure at 30 Seifert Lane in 2021, it was filled with black mold, said Muller, a construction project manager.

Last year, after rebuilding the cabin by hand using Passive House principles — an airtight envelope with lots of insulation — Muller and Klubnick moved in.

Their electricity bills average $150 a month. They don’t use gas or oil. The lot is too shaded for solar, so they joined a solar farm program that saves them 10 percent on their electricity supply.

The couple met in 2017 and started searching for a home during the pandemic. They had a budget of $250,000 and wanted two or three bedrooms. That priced them out of the Highlands, and they considered the Catskills, Vermont and Maine. But Muller grew up in Cold Spring and Klubnick, a baker, grew up in Putnam Valley, so they wanted to stay local. They settled on Plan B: “Buy the worst house in the neighborhood and fix it up,” said Klubnick.

That turned out to be the clapboard cottage, owned by Judy and John Allen. It was built in 1938 as a summer retreat for Al Palermo and his cousin John Viscardi, a New York City engineer who, according to Allen family lore, worked on the Manhattan Project. The Allens raised two children in the home, including Rosie, who was born on the pull-out couch with the help of two friends, one of whom was a nurse. Rosie became Klubnick’s best friend from down the road.

In 1997, the Allens built a larger home on the 25-acre property and offered the cottage to renters or “people whose marriages were breaking up,” Judy Allen said. The last tenant, a hoarder, left the place in disrepair in 2019.

The Allens were thrilled to sell the cottage to Muller and Klubnick. Klubnick’s late mother, Maaike Hoekstra, had been a close friend who helped found the nearby Tompkins Corners Cultural Center. “She’s my fairy godmother,” said Klubnick of Judy Allen.

Muller said the original plan wasn’t to build a high-performance house. But when they realized most of the structure was unsalvageable, they decided to pursue it. “It was ethically important for me,” said Muller, who majored in environmental studies at Vassar and is president of Sustainable Putnam, which advocates for sustainable communities. “I wanted to walk the walk.”

With its thick walls, insulation and tight envelope, the house requires only one mini-split air-source heat pump. “It’s basically the smallest system you could possibly have,” said Muller. They have not sought Passive House certification so Muller calls it “passive-ish.”

Muller worked on the home full-time from late 2021 through early 2024. Klubnick worked on it full time for about 18 months. “I like working with my hands,” she said. They live with their dogs, Jones and Zorra, and their cats, Suzannah and Birdy. With two bedrooms, there is room for their daughter, due in October. They’ve added framing above the kitchen for more bedrooms, “if the family keeps growing,” Muller said.

Besides the cost, Robinson said a barrier to passive building is that contractors need to learn new skills, and it takes more planning. There’s a “pain-in-the-neck factor,” said Robinson. “It takes a few more months before you start digging.”

Over the last 20 years, building codes have adopted many principles of the Passive House, including increased insulation and tighter building envelopes. In 2020, Beacon adopted the New York Stretch Building Code, which includes even stricter performance standards.

Bryan Murphy, Beacon’s building inspector, said that energy efficiency standards have increased dramatically since he started in the construction business 35 years ago. “Oh gosh, they’re tenfold better,” he said.

Next Week: Public Power?

Part 1: Peak Power
Part 2: Cost Overload