Passive House: Planning and Design Seminar
DISCLAIMER
Before purchasing, review the rules of your licensing or certifying entity. It is your responsibility to confirm this course meets your CE requirements. See the credit tab on the course page for details.
What’s Included: Full webinar recording, written course materials, expert instruction, a mandatory quiz, and a certificate upon completion.
Deliverability Timeline: All courses are generally available within 1-2 weeks after the live presentation.
CE Credits: AIA and/or LA/CES accreditation is available by request for courses recorded prior to March 11, 2026. All courses after that date include those accreditations by default, if applicable. With these accreditations, our courses qualify for credit in nearly all states for engineers, surveyors, architects, and landscape architects.
Learn more about the on-demand format in our FAQ or contact us at (715) 835-5900 or customerservice@halfmoonseminars.org
Agenda
Registration: 8:00 – 8:30 am
Morning Session: 8:30 – 11:45 am
Lunch (On your own): 11:45 am – 12:45 pm
Afternoon Session: 12:45 – 4:30 pm
Understanding the Energy Efficiency of Conventional Construction
Facts and figures on residential energy use
History of energy-conserving residential construction
Energy language primer, and introduction to thermal bridging
Building code requirements, energy efficiency incentives
Passive House Standard: Purpose, Principles and Development
History of certifying agencies in US: PHI and PHIUS
Passive House Standard: energy, IAQ, comfort, durability
Energy calculations: how and when to perform them
Energy calculation tools: introduction and functionality
Passive House Certification process
Assembling and managing a project team
Design features of single and multifamily Passive Houses
Critical factors for floor-planning, windows and ventilation
Architectural Elements of Passive Houses
Siting, sizing, insolation, shading and orientation
Super-insulated envelope with minimized thermal bridging
Critical elements – windows, ventilation, dehumidification
Ultra-efficient lights, fixtures and appliances
Multifamily design considerations
Winter solar gain and heat retention strategies
Integrating renewable energy – single and multifamily
Mechanical Systems in Passive Houses
Optimizing heat gains
Passive solar heating, with actual data from 3 buildings
Indoor environmental heat gains
Heat and energy recovery ventilation systems
Supplemental heating systems
Energy-efficient appliances
Multifamily mechanical systems considerations
Evaluating Passive House Case Studies
Adapting Passive House for Maine
Case studies: single and multifamily projects
Discussion
Credits
Professional Engineers
6.5 PDHs
Architects
6.5 HSW Continuing Ed. Hours
6.5 AIA HSW Learning Units
Contractors
Non-Credit Continuing Ed.
Continuing Education Credit Information
This seminar is open to the public and offers 6.5 PDHs to professional engineers and 6.5 HSW continuing education hours to architects in all states, except Florida architects. Educators and courses are not subject to preapproval in Maine.
The American Institute of Architects has approved this event for 6.5 HSW Learning Units (Sponsor No. J885). Only full attendance can be reported to the AIA/CES.
HalfMoon Education is an approved continuing education sponsor for engineers in Florida, Maryland, New Jersey (Approval No. 24GP00000700), New York (NYSED Sponsor No. 35), North Carolina, and North Dakota. HalfMoon Education is deemed an approved architect continuing education sponsor in New York.
This seminar offers a non-credit continuing education opportunity to contractors. It is not approved by any state contractor licensing entity.
Attendance will be monitored, and attendance certificates will be available after the seminar for most individuals who complete the entire event. Attendance certificates not available at the seminar will be mailed to participants within fifteen business days.
Speakers
Michael B. Duclos
Principal and Founder of THE DEAP Energy Group, LLC
Mr. Duclos is a principal and founder of THE DEAP Energy Group, LLC, a consultancy providing a wide variety of deep energy retrofit, zero net energy and Passive House-related consulting services. He is a founder, on the board of directors, and director of education of Energy Raters of Massachusetts, Inc., a RESNET-certified HERS Provider specifically catering to independent HERS Raters in New England. Mr. Duclos also founded Energy Efficiency Associates, LLC, to provide conventional home HERS, energy audit, Stretch Code, tax certification and associated verification and consulting services.
Mr. Duclos was an energy consultant on the Transformations, Inc., Massachusetts Zero Energy Challenge entry, which was awarded the second prize of $15K. He has worked on a variety of Zero Net Energy, DER and Passive House projects, including two National Grid DER projects which qualified for the ACI Thousand Homes Challenge, Option B, both of which have certified with a year of energy consumption data to use less energy than specified by THC Option B. Mr. Duclos conducted a feasibility study of a retrofit to the Passive House new home performance standard. He assisted with the design and preparation of the PHPP for the first EnerPHIT certified home in the US.
Mr. Duclos also worked on the design and certification of the first National Grid DER project to successfully qualify for the Zero Net Energy incentive, which completed a year of use with a surplus of 500 KWHR. He served on the NESEA Zero Energy Task force which analyzed utility bill data from applicants for the annual $10K award for the best zero net energy home. Mr. Duclos is a founding member and was on the board of directors of Passive House New England, Inc., a non-profit promoting high performance building, including Passive House. He is a member of the Northeast HERS Alliance Technical Committee and was on the MassSave New Construction Program HERS Rater Panel.
Mr. Duclos monitors the delivered performance of his projects using a variety of real time electricity monitors, as well as temperature, RH and CO2 loggers and correlates this data to the expected performance predicted by his energy models. The actual data, and the stories behind the data are made available to the public in speaking engagements in a variety of public venues, and in publications like Home Energy Magazine.
Mr. Duclos is an ITC-certified building science infrared thermographer, and he is the certified Passive House consultant responsible for the design and certification of the second Passive House in Massachusetts. He holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from UMass Lowell, and two patents.
Mr. Duclos consulted on the first multifamily Passive House certified in New Hampshire, a 24-unit affordable senior housing facility near Laconia, New Hampshire.