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Passive House

Certified Passive House Builder and Consultant

Bensonwood is ready to build your new Passive House project today.

Vermont Passive House by Zero Energy Designs and Bensonwood in Norwich Vermont
Vermont Passive House mudroom
Vermont Passive House great room and open kitchen
Vermont Passive House

Norwich, Vermont

Architects: A Zero Energy Design and Bensonwood Collaboration

Passive House Certifications

Bensonwood is a certified passive house builder

Certified PHIUS Builder

passive house cphc

Certified PHIUS Consultant

Exceptionally energy efficient buildings for comfortable living

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Certified PHIUS Builder

Passive House is the most rigorous building energy standard in the world

Bensonwood building enclosure systems have been capable of meeting these uncompromising standards of Passive House for over a decade.

Where High-Performance and Comfort Meet.

The 5 Passive House Institute US

Building Science Principles

Continuous Insulation
Airtight Construction
Optimized Windows
Balanced Ventilation
Minimal Mechanical Systems

High-Performance & Comfort

Bensonwood Passive House

Bensonwood’s scalable and PHlexible panelized building enclosure systems are suited for passive house performance. Passive House certification is based on a metric rather than a specific design solution and accounts for factors such as climate zone, orientation, square footage, and size and types of windows. This means that a single passive house solution will not work for all projects. Bensonwood’s customizable PHlex system can be applied to many projects to achieve Passive House levels of performance or certification.

Bensonwood Homes

Certified Passive House Builder and a Certified Passive House Consultant

Bensonwood is a certified passive house builder
passive house cphc
Bensonwood Introduces

The PHlex Wall System

PH lex

PHlexible Passive House Approach

Our building systems are adaptable to help you meet passive house performance. Framing depths and continuous insulation can be adjusted based on your design and climate zone.

  • Scalable to project specifications
  • Wall assemblies for any building design
  • Building material choices for budget
PHlex

PHlexible Passive House Approach

R53 WFB10@2x

PHlex walls are fully customizable to fit your project needs

Contact us for more information

  • A. INTERIOR FINISH

    Custom specifications

  • B. SERVICE LAYER

    Dimension to support services, additional insulation, and fastenings

  • C. AIR AND VAPOR CONTROL LAYER

    OSB with taped seams (shear layer)

  • D. STRUCTURAL FRAMING & INSULATION @ 24" o/c

    PHlexible exterior dimensions

  • E. Exterior Insulated Sheathing and Drainage Plane

    PHlexible exterior dimensions

PHlex walls are fully customizable to fit your project needs

Contact us for more information

Durability | Air Quality | Energy Efficiency

Our Passive House Components

Durability

High-Performance Enclosure Systems

  • air

    AIRTIGHTNESS

    Our choice of building materials such as tapes, gaskets, and lumber all contribute to lower air tightness rates which improve the air quality and energy efficiency of the home.

  • Water by Adnen Kadri from the Noun Project

    MOISTURE MANAGEMENT

    Our walls manage moisture by utilizing the smart vapor permeance benefits of OSB and the hygroscopic properties of cellulose. A semi-vapor open assembly allows for drying in both directions, making it ideal for all climates, and balanced, continuous mechanical ventilation manages interior humidity reducing the amount of moisture that enters the assembly.

  • weather by Vectorstall from the Noun Project

    FLASHING DETAILS

    High-performance tapes used for flashing ensure that no water enters our panels. Roofing is weather tight upon installation with ZIP sheathing.

Indoor Air Quality

Healthy Homes for Life

  • Air Conditioner by Prettycons from the Noun Project

    HEAT/ENERGY RECOVERY VENTILATION

    Highly efficient energy and heat recovery ventilation systems are a requirement of the passive house, and deliver fresh air to the building while exhausting an equal amount of stale and moist air.

  • Earth Environment by Atif Arshad from the Noun Project

    LOW/NO VOC MATERIALS

    All materials in our homes are screened from an indoor air quality perspective, to avoid unhealthy materials and off-gassing.

Energy Efficiency

Green Building Materials and Systems

  • insulation by Guillermo Guso from the Noun Project

    CONTINUOUS INSULATION OPTIONS

    Levels and material customization to your project requirements. Options for your climate, project design and structural requirements.

  • window by Jaap Knevel from the Noun Project

    HIGH-PERFORMANCE WINDOWS

    Save energy and increase comfort with triple glazed window options that meet the thermal requirements of Passive House.

  • by sahua d

    HIGH-PERFORMANCE HEATING AND COOLING

    Fossil fuel free, highly efficient, electric heating and cooling systems powered by renewable energy to achieve zero source energy consumption.

Off-site fabrication of homes and buildings brings much-needed high technology into the building trades. It introduces career paths for the next generation of the construction workforce. It also fosters new levels of respect for the building trades by introducing sophisticated machinery and processes to an industry that hasn’t seen much real innovation.

Tedd Benson

Bensonwood Founder

Bensowood builds

to these additional high-performance standards

High-Performance Prefabricated Construction

How We Build Passive Multifamily Units

Bensonwood building enclosure systems have been capable of meeting the rigorous passive house standards for over a decade. Multifamily projects designed and built with our enclosure systems can easily achieve PHIUS certified performance. A passive house results in long-term comfort for residents, low cost of ownership, and better health for our planet. Designers and developers can take advantage of Bensonwood's Tektoniks panels to incorporate our PHIUS-ready building systems into their designs.

PHIUS Certified Multifamily Construction

Affordable, Resilient, and Healthy

The Benefits of Passive House Building

Bensowood builds

to these additional high-performance standards

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LET'S TALK.

Have a Multifamily Passive House project?

Talk with our dedicated Passive House team

builder square transparent
LET'S TALK.

Have a Multifamily Passive House project?

Talk with our dedicated Passive House team

A Better Way to Build

The Prefab Homebuilding of the Future

Prefabricated components are built off-site at our facility and then assembled on-site. This method removes time and costs. Bensonwood began using off-site manufacturing with its timberframe division and applied the best practices to panel fabrication.

1

Virtual Build

Computer-aided design

All components start out as 3D models and undergo a verification process for accuracy before any manufacturing begins.

2

Fabricate

Off-site Manufacturing

Our building systems division makes all precision prefab components in a dependable factory environment.

3

Factory Install

Finsishing Components

Finishing component installation happens in the factory, eliminating costly mistakes at the construction site.

4

Transport

Weatherproof BUndles

Bundles of weatherproof building elements shipped to the construction site arrive safely.

Site Assembly

Building components are easily assembled at the construction site with minimal waste.

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Our Manufacturing

Bensonwood | Tektoniks | Unity Homes

Our new 110,000-square-foot production facility in southwestern New Hampshire will better serve the passive house market with our new Tektoniks building components brand. The efficient manufacturing technology of Tektoniks produces panels and air-tight building envelopes using our unique building systems for wall, floor and roof panels.

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Our Capacity

Advancing in production and finishing

The production capacity and the amount of finishing involved in the component systems will increase for both Bensonwood and Unity Homes. Soon panels will be sent to job sites with wiring and siding preinstalled, and eventually completed bathrooms will be delivered as prebuilt pod systems.

PH lex

Prefabricated Panelized Enclosure Systems

Passive House Performance for any Design

PHlex System

Bensonwood | Tektoniks | Unity Homes

The PHlex system can be applied to both single-family and multifamily projects with passive house performance goals. Benefits include design versatility and an enclosure system appropriate to the end-user and climate zone.

PHlex and More

Panelized Enclosures

Learn more about our other wall assemblies.

A Customized Approach

Scalable for PHIUS Certification

All of our standard panel designs can be adapted using greater framing depths and continuous insulation. Our wall, roof, and floor assemblies can be scaled for different insulation values, meaning projects can achieve PHIUS certification or performance.

High-performance prefab wall systems ready to get any project to PHIUS standards.

tektoniks white and amber 1

Prefabricated building components delivered.

Why we need more Passive Homes today

Residential and commercial buildings are responsible for an enormous quantity of global energy use, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. Residential energy use accounts for 20% of the total US energy consumption

Energy Consulting | Sustainable Building

Meet Our Passive House Team

Both Bensonwood and sister company, Unity Homes, strive to achieve super-insulated, super-tight houses that often meet, and sometimes exceed, Passive House standards of airtightness while offering extraordinary durability, quality, comfort and wellness. We have a dedicated and certified Passive House team and energy consulting/sustainability staff to help you every step of the way in building your extremely energy-efficient passive house.

Hans Porschitz

Chief Operations Officer and Company Steward
Hans leads daily operations at Bensonwood and oversees the company’s research and development of improved systems and products for the construction industry. As a member and coordinator of the collaborative “Open-Prototype Initiative,” he participated in a number of innovative projects including the Net-Zero, LEED Platinum, Unity House and BrightBuilt Barn, as well as the renowned Loblolly house.
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Jay Lepple

Building Systems Team Leader and Company Steward
Jay leads operations of the building systems manufacturing facility in Keene that produces wall, floor and roof enclosures for Bensonwood and Unity Homes. He serves as an instructor for partner builder classes at Bensonwood, and was a presenter at the 2016 Passive House conference and collaborated with the television series, This Old House, on the Bensonwood Weston house in 2006.
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Blog | Media | In the News

Learn More About Passive House

Read More in Our Blog

Passive House Articles

The New York Times: Business

Passive House: Can We Build in a Brighter Shade of Green?

Read the NYT article on the construction of The Vermont Passive House in Norwich, Vermont

Contact Our Professionals

Certifed Passive House Builders and Consultants

Prefer to talk in person?

Call Us

Monday - Friday 8:00AM to 4:00PM