Ski Superinsulated!

What does high-performance architecture have to do with alpine skiing? Quite a bit, it turns out!

Last week, I took the kids skiing at Heavenly in South Lake Tahoe, California. Part way through our trip, a freak weather event caused the temperatures to plummet to 12ºF at the base and 4ºF at the summit of the ski lift, much lower than typical for the area. Both of my sons and their friend are San Francisco Bay Area natives who’d never been exposed to temperatures that low. I was having grave doubts that they could tolerate it, and seriously questioning whether I wanted to! What to do?

Much like the high-performance homes I design for my Passive House (Passivhaus) clients, we assembled “superinsulated” shells. We were careful to make our insulation continuous and added layers to block wind and eliminate air leakage. Materials were carefully chosen that allow moisture (perspiration) to evaporate rather than accumulate. We topped it off with high-performance glazing (goggles) and small amounts of strategically positioned active heating (hand warmers in gloves), and off we went. We skied hard the whole day in complete comfort, and quite stylishly I might add. 😉

To continue the architecture analogy, did these measures cost more than the cheapest, lowest-performing options available? Yes, but it was a tiny percentage of the overall expense for equipment, lodging, and lift tickets. Without this incremental investment, the entire endeavor would have been severely compromised, if not wasted. Instead, we crushed it!

That’s about all I have to say about skiing at this point, but if you want to know more about our approach to great design, what we consider high-performance architecture, and the building science beneath it, look here.