Search Climate Insights Directory

This briefing introduces the 'hours of safety' framework to quantify the resilience of building envelopes during power outages caused by severe winter storms, comparing various home construction standards from the 1950s to Passive House standards.

This insight brief introduces 'hours of safety' as a metric to quantify how long a building envelope can maintain safe indoor temperatures during power outages in extreme cold. Using simulations of five building types in Duluth, Minnesota, the research demonstrates that high-performance envelopes, such as those meeting Passive House standards, significantly extend the time residents can safely shelter in place compared to older or code-compliant homes.

This case study details a deep energy retrofit of the Carol Avenue Apartments in Boston, a 33-unit affordable housing property built in 1910. The project, scheduled for completion in late 2024, focuses on eliminating on-site fossil fuel combustion through electrification, improving the building envelope from the interior to preserve a historic brick façade, and installing rooftop solar PV systems.