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Abstract
A Minnesota language institute recently completed the first US building certified as meeting strict super-insulation specifications developed in Germany, the Passivhaus standards. The recently certified Passivhaus building, the Waldsee BioHaus, was built on the 830-acre Bemidji, Minnesota, campus of the German Language Village, a branch of Concordia College. The Waldsee BioHaus is a 4,992-square-foot building containing dormitory rooms, bathrooms, showers, common areas, and a kitchen. The BioHaus beat two of the most difficult-to-achieve Passivhaus specifications: the heating load specification and the airtightness specification. The Passivhaus window standard is tough to meet; it calls for triple-glazed windows with a maximum whole-window U-factor of 0.14. The Waldsee BioHaus cost a lot to build. A German environmental foundation, Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, provided a $650,000 grant to offset some of the construction costs, while various corporate sponsors provided equipment. The BioHaus performance data will be shared with future students at the German Language Village.