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Harvard Unveils Newly Retrofitted HouseZero Harvard’s New Approach to Studying Green Building Last month, Harvard unveiled its new, state of the art HouseZero building, designed by Norwegian based Snøhetta, an international architecture firm focused on sustainability. The 1940’s structure was newly retrofitted to be highly energy eff … read more

2018 Year in Review 2018 was a year of growing communication, community and successes. We are happy to be working with so many outstanding people. Let’s run through some highlights. These are the folks you call in the HQ office, for a full list of staff see the Our Team. PEOPLE The 475 team is growing and in 2018 seven new … read more

Project Spotlight: Simple Life Homes' Foam Free Prefab Assembly Creating Comfortable, Foam-Free, All-Electric Senior Homes In Ontario’s Ski Country There are several hot topics we look out for here at 475: foam free building, Smart Enclosures, prefab manufacturing, and frack-free (all-electric) housing. This is a rare project spotligh … read more

Gutex vs XPS: Insulating in a Hot House World High-Performance Gutex Wood Fiber Insulating Materials Outperform Foam Due to the density and specific heat capacity of wood, Gutex wood fiber insulation is able to far outperform unsustainable and unhealthy materials such as XPS foam insulation. While Gutex has a lower R-value per inch (R … read more

Weather Resistive Barrier Cheat Sheet A guide to advantages and differences between Pro Clima exterior membranes If you’ve spent your days thinking WRBs are just a required, code-minimum, flimsy sheets of No.15 Felt (per IBC 1404 or IRC 703.2), Grade D building paper (per ASTM D226), or spunbonded olefin housewrap; all with little dif … read more

Sehr Gut(ex): A Tiny House Journey Experiences Using Passive House-Supportive Products on Our Tiny House on Wheels This guest article was written by Rachel and Donovan, the good folks behind tinyhappypeopleblog.com. Go check them out to read more about their experience. Our Tiny Journey Although it’s technically “tiny,” our … read more