Quaker Passive House' School Is First of Its Kind in Maine: Heating Bill

Quaker 'passive house' school is first of its kind in Maine - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram
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Quaker ‘passive house’ school

is first of its kind in Maine
The Cumberland structure will have almost no energy costs and
uses a design expected to become more widespread.
BY MATT BYRNE STAFF WRITER

mbyrne@pressherald.com | @mattbyrnePPH | 207-791-6303
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Quaker 'passive house' school is first of its kind in Maine - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram Page 2 of 10

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Sixth grade students Elwen Bernard, 12, left, and Naomi Zarin, 10, listen with Head of School Jenny Rowe as
Building Committee chair Naomi Beal explains how the unique Passive House Design construction makes for a very
energy efficient school. Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

More than its airy classrooms, wooded trails or expansive windows, the greatest
advantage at the new Friends School of Portland will be what the building lacks:
utility bills.
When construction is completed this summer, the Friends School of Portland will
become the first school in Maine to attain a rigorous set of building efficiency
standards, known as “passive house” status, that means it will be able to dispense with
nearly all of its energy costs. Instead, it will rely on a combination of solar power,
modern heating techniques and construction methods so tight that the body heat
generated by the school’s 120 occupants was factored into the design.
“It’s an incredible gift that this board has given to the

future of this school to have a completely predictable
operating cost,” said Naomi C.O. Beal, chair of the
Friends School’s building committee, and also the
director of PassivhausMAINE, a group that
promotes the building technique in the state. “For a
The Friends School of Portland has airtight
construction and a heat pump system private school operating on a margin, that’s a big
powered by a solar array. Even the trees
cleared took solar power into account.
piece.”
Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
Although only two other schools in the nation and a
handful of private homes in the state have reached
the “passive house” level of efficiency, planners and
architects who designed the school expect the
methods to become more widespread in the United
States in the future.
The roughly $2.5 million school project is the result

of three years of fundraising by school boosters and
two years of planning by architects and designers.
Mike Matthes, supervisor for Warren
Construction Group, shows the six layers of The result will be an angular 15,500-square-foot
material that create an airtight barrier in
the walls of the new Friends School of structure with half a dozen classrooms, art and music
Portland.
space, administrative offices and, for the first time, a
large, indoor area to host the school’s Quaker
Search photos available for
purchase: Photo Store → meetings.
The new building stands on 22 wooded acres in


in 2006.
While energy-efficient structures built into hillsides or underground – or those using

turf as a natural building material – have existed for centuries, research into passive
structures emerged in Germany in the late 1980s and early buildings in the style were
constructed in the early 1990s.
Since then, the methods have gained traction throughout Europe and especially in
Nordic countries, where environmental consciousness and a desire to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and energy use have driven some of the largest passive
developments in the world.
Modern passive structures can look identical to any other home, office or school, but
what makes them unique is what’s hidden under the walls, floor and ceiling.
Thick layers of insulation are packed behind every surface.
Underneath exterior shingles and clapboards are layers of specialized sheathing,

similar to thick plastic or rubber, that keep moisture and air from getting through.
Sealing the gaps are wide bands of construction tapes, designed to stick to all kinds of
materials and replace caulking or other liquid fillers that have long been traditional
sealants.
The windows are triple-glazed and the casements are designed to be virtually leak-
proof, said Peter Warren of Warren Construction Group, which is building the
school.
Closing the gaps leaves no place for heat to escape or cold air to creep in. Air is
circulated at a steady rate by ventilation systems that recover leftover energy from the
outflow.
“It is a whole new way of looking at construction,” said Phil Kaplan of Kaplan
Thompson Architects, the Portland firm that worked on the project.
A heat pump system powered by a 40-kilowatt solar array on the school’s sloped roof
will keep the rooms at specific temperatures.

important to achieving such efficient operation, other gains are baked into more

cast on the site by the surrounding foliage, Kaplan said the designers had to select, one
by one, which trees to clear and which to keep, in order to maximize the use of the
sun’s energy to heat the building naturally.
Head of School Jenny Rowe said students will learn about how the school was
constructed and how the principles behind it align with the larger Quaker philosophy
“to take care of each other, (and) to take care of the land,” Rowe said. “It’s a very
obvious outgrowth.”
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Quaker 'passive house' school is first of its kind in Maine - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

SECTIONS What are you looking for? SubmitLOG IN

Heating 1 Little-Known Tip Saves People 60%

NEWS Posted 4:00 AM Updated 49 mins ago INCREASE FONT SIZE