The first day of spring is a day to rejoice in the fact that the winter freeze is (hopefully) behind us; soon to be replaced by sunnier and warmer days. The onset of spring’s warmer weather inevitably brings about more time outside as well as the regrowth of our lawns, trees and gardens. Today isn’t just the first day of spring, it also happens to be International Earth Day; a day established by the United Nations in 1971 to encourage the world to appreciate nature and talk about ways to conserve our awesome planet and its resources.

To commemorate International Earth Day, our “Home of the Week” is a newly listed and certified “Passive House” that uses 10% of the energy a standard house does. In fact, at today’s energy costs, this “Passive Home” would net its owner a whopping $193,693 in energy savings over a 30 year period, and over $60K in savings over 10 years. Oh, and the home is beautiful too.

Located in Bethesda, MD and listed for $1.6 million, this energy efficient home was built by an award-winning builder and architect and features: Over 4,6000 square feet, an open floor plan, top of the line wood floors, a master suite with luxury bathroom, 4 additional bedrooms and 3 baths, a deck and a whole lot more!

Sure it’s a great looking home, but what makes this home truly special is that its one of the only homes east of the Mississippi River that holds the “Passive House” certification.

“Passive House” defines an approach to construction and an energy certification standard. The straightforward approach to building a home like this is the most efficient path to green construction because it focuses on reducing energy demand to the absolute minimum so that only a small amount of expensive technologies are needed to get a home to self sufficiency; or “Net Zero”.

With “Passive House” being the only standard designed specifically to meet the IPCC target of 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, and yearly energy costs of only $350, this home is both great for our environment and sure will save whoever owns it a lot of money!

Innovation doesn’t have to be expensive either. The real value in this mode of building homes and achieving sustainability is the “Passive House” method is easily accessible to architects and builders to replicate. At a cost increase of only 10% above standard construction and training available to professionals everywhere, we believe that more homes across the globe will be built like Erich Cabe’s listing at 4717 North Chelsea Lane. And that’s a good thing.

If you’d like to learn more about this home click here.

Click here to watch a video to learn more about “Passive House” construction.