One of the basics being addressed as part of the passive house design process is establishing a baseline of factors such as energy use and green house gas generation. The US EPA has already compiled some energy use information and conversion factors that will help in the baseline development.

Average Annual CO2 Emissions for an Average Single-Family Home:
Average CO2 emissions: 24,900 lbs/year (11.3 metric tons/ year)
Average Carbon emissions: 6,800 lbs/year (3.1 metric tons/year)
Average kWh: 11,965 kWh/ year (124 mmBtu/ year, delivered)

Source: RECS, 2001
The average single-family home adds more than twice as much greenhouse gas (CE) emissions to the atmosphere as the average passenger vehicle.

One of the important factors in this effort is our commitment to do all we can to make the house affordable. First we need to clarify what we mean by affordable. The numbers in the linked file below are a little out of date (2006) but they provide a clear indication of the estimates we’re using to achieve an affordability target. Basically, we’re trying for a “sale price” of about $150,000. This means a family earning between $45,000 and $50,000 should be able to afford to buy it. We think it will cost about $275,000 to build, so we need subsidy and sponsor donations totaling about $125,000. These estimates don’t include

appleseed_affordability