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Original Title: Hammer & Hand adds high performance doors to millwork arsenal – Passivhaus efficiency “made in the USA”
Original Author: Zack Semke
Originally Posted on: September 18th, 2012
New door at Karuna matches European-made rivals at lower cost, both in dollars and carbon.
The new high performance Passive House door (learn more about our custom high performance doors here) built for the Karuna House by Hammer & Hand’s Dan Palmer and Josh Tinker marks two milestones reached, one for H&H, the other for Passive House.
Milestone One: superefficient millwork built in-house
The Karuna door shows that the woodshop can build the highest performing custom millwork out there. Our shop has evolved. We still do reproductions of traditional trim profiles and jointery, but we’re also combining our woodworking chops with a new grounding in building science to build doors and windows that can match the performance of the best coming out of Europe. The door at Karuna manifests this development.
Milestone Two: Another step toward making Passive House native to the US
One of the most exciting developments in the US Passive House movement is that the standard is becoming native to the US. While high performance building owes a great debt of gratitude to European pioneers like Dr. Wolfgang Feist of the Passivhaus Institut in Germany, standards like Passive House need to be aligned with the US market, US rating schemes, and US incentive programs to really take off here. Lots of progress has been made by Passive House Institute US and Passive House Alliance US in this regard lately (see PHIUS+).
We need to see similar progress in the supply chains for Passive House materials and components. As long as the highest performing building components are built in Europe, the ongoing energy savings that they confer on US projects may very well outweigh the carbon emissions impact of shipping those components across the Atlantic. (See Brute Force Collaborative’s post on the subject, “Can European windows actually save carbon?”) But ultimately there’s no reason we can’t manufacture those components domestically. And when we do, we’ll start avoiding the financial and environmental costs that come with trans-Atlantic shipping. Homegrown high performance doors like the one at Karuna represent one step toward “components independence” for the US Passive House industry.
The Details
The Karuna House seeks Passive House, Minergie-P-ECO and LEED for Homes Platinum certification, so our task was to build a high performance exterior door made of sustainable materials. (All other exterior doors and windows on the project are manufactured by Optiwin in Austria.)
Core of door constructed with slots to accept poly-iso insulation. (photography in this post by Dan Palmer & Jeff Tan)
Hammer & Hand woodshop manger Dan Palmer and woodworker Josh Tinker built the door from 100% Forest Stewardship Council®-certified wood, with all lamination done in-house.
Various stages of lamination involved traditional clamping (l) and vacuum bag clamping (r) for ultra-even pressure.
Superinsulation, high performance weather stripping, and advanced hardware enable the door to reach the thermal performance required by Passive House. Two 1-inch layers of poly-iso form the insulative core of the door. (The poly-iso can be replaced with vacuum-insulated panels, or VIPs, for even higher thermal performance.) A tiered profile for door and jamb accommodates two in-kerf weather stripping assemblies. An advanced multipoint lock system uses rollers that allow precise tuning of the door’s weather seal.
The tiered profile for door and jamb.
Two levels of in-kerf weather stripping provide a tight weather seal.
The multipoint lock system.
The finished door at the shop (l), and being installed by Dan (r).
The door’s heft and thickness are reminiscent of European high performance doors, but Dan designed the Karuna door to use standard North American butt hinges. This detail matches the look of the other doors at Karuna and makes installation more practical – the fit and finish are standard, easy for installers to work with.
The door has significant heft (l), uses North American butt hinges (r).
In related news, Dan and Josh just finished installation of retrofitted windows on an historic Portland home today, transforming them into highly efficient units while preserving their architectural heritage. So please stay tuned for more high performance millwork stories soon!
– Zack
The high performance Passive House door, installed at Karuna.
Original Title: Hammer and Hand launches production of Passive House custom doors, ‘Made In The USA’
Original Author: Zack Semke
Originally Posted on: September 27th, 2012
om Passive House doorPortland/Seattle builder Hammer and Hand announced today the production of high performance energy efficient custom doors, designed and built in Southeast Portland, that meet the rigorous energy requirements of the Passive House building standard.
Passive House, the world’s most demanding building energy standard, is quickly gaining ground in the US building sector today, but many of the building components used in American Passive House projects are imported from Europe. Hammer and Hand’s custom Passive House doors are a step toward making Passive House native to the US.
“While the high performance building movement owes a debt of gratitude to European pioneers,” said Sam Hagerman, co-owner of Hammer and Hand, “high performance building will really take off here when the movement’s materials, components, and certifications become native to the US.”
This development will have important financial and carbon emissions implications. While the ongoing energy savings of today’s European-manufactured high performance building components often outweigh the carbon emissions impact of shipping those components across the Atlantic, comparable US-made components would avoid that environmental cost altogether.
Hammer and Hand’s inaugural custom Passive House door was installed last week at the Karuna House near Newberg, Oregon. That project is a national case study of green building certifications, pursuing PHIUS+ Passive House, Minergie-P-ECO, LEED for Homes Platinum, and net-zero energy designations. To meet the project’s sustainability goals, Hammer and Hand built the door from 100% locally-sourced Forest Stewardship Council®-certified wood. Superinsulation, precision weather stripping, and advanced hardware enable the door to reach the thermal performance required by Passive House.
“Home grown high performance doors like the one at Karuna represent an important step toward ‘components independence’ for the US Passive House industry,” said Hagerman.
Original Title: Video: custom Passive House door fabrication
Original Author: Jeffrey Tan
Originally Posted on: September 28th, 2012
Dan Palmer discusses the unique task of building a custom high performance door for the Karuna Passive House
Hammer & Hand woodshop manager Dan Palmer and carpenter Josh Tinker showed that they have the chops to hang with the European manufacturers by building a custom high performance door for the Karuna Passive House. From a four-point locking mechanism, to a poly-iso core and locally source materials, Dan and Josh show that high performance Passive House doors don’t have to be imported from Europe. Check out the video below to hear Dan detail the fabrication and installation of his custom door at the Karuna Passive house!
– Jeff
Original Title: Passive House doors in the news, and featured by new Hammer & Hand web page
Original Author: Zack Semke
Originally Posted on: November 5th, 2012
Check out national blogosphere coverage of our Passivhaus doors.
Hammer & Hand’s new custom Passive House doors have attracted some nice coverage from national green building writers, starting with a feature by Preston Koerner of Jetson Green on September 28, moving on to a piece by Susan DeFreitas of EarthTechling, and culminating with an article by Richard Defendorf in Green Building Advisor.
To find out what they’re saying, please check out the links above. Meanwhile, we’ve launched a new web page dedicated to the high performance doors. You’ll find a video of Woodshop Manager Dan Palmer there, as well as links to the latest blog posts about the doors. We’re excited to be building these homegrown, native-to-North-America high performance building components!
– Zack
Original Title: Client Reviews Custom High Performance Door Made by Hammer & Hand
Original Author: Zack Semke
Originally Posted on: December 10th, 2014
“This is a premium door,” said H&H customer Ronald recently. “The door is beautiful to look at. I’m impressed with the quality of the construction and functionality. And its thermal performance rivals that of the surrounding walls.”
Like most of our clients, Ronald approached us to create something special for his home. He was in the midst of a comprehensive remodel and energy retrofit of his Naperville, Illinois home and wanted a premium entry door that combined great design with great thermal performance.
Finding the perfect door became a labor of love. With an electrical engineer’s curiosity about how things work and a design aficionado’s eye for elegant solutions, Ronald dove into research. He pored through Houzz and other design sites to help develop his vision for what the door should look like and how it should operate. He learned about high performance building approaches, like Passive House, and the advanced building components that make them work.
During this research Ronald stumbled upon Hammer & Hand’s video about the Passive House inset door that Woodshop Manager Dan Palmer built for our Karuna House project. And a unique, client-builder collaboration was born.
“I knew Dan had experience doing a thermally high performing door,” Ronald said. “So I asked him, ‘How about doing an overlay version?’”
(Visit our High Performance Doors page for more about our approach, including videos and specs.)
Here’s what Ronald shared about working with Hammer & Hand:
“My baseline objectives for replacing the entry door on my house boiled down to two key concepts: aesthetics and thermal performance. Aesthetically, I wanted a modern style door that fit in with the exterior color scheme and look of my house. On the interior, I wanted to use wengé – a beautiful, exotic wood – and the entry door was a great place to employ it. Wengé is a wood type that is far from desirable from a thermal performance perspective, so you would not want to build a door from solid wengé, but in this application it works well because it is being used as veneer on a super-insulated door.
The story of how I came to contact Hammer & Hand began with my attempts to procure a modern-styled entry door. At first, I thought that I had to use a European-built door to achieve my aesthetic and performance objectives. Most US door manufacturers do not make doors in the modern style that I desired. Those few US distributors who do sell modern-styled entry doors offer solid doors, not the high performance insulated ones available in Europe.
After encountering a number of challenges when attempting to procure a European-built door, I eventually contacted Hammer & Hand. What drew me to Hammer & Hand was the Passive House door that Dan Palmer built for the Karuna House project. And while that door was an inset door rather than the overlay door style that I was after (and is common in European Passive House doors), I could see that Hammer & Hand had the in-house engineering and construction competence to build the high performance door that I sought. I contacted Dan and asked if he would consider applying his knowledge to the construction of an overlay style door, and Dan took the challenge! In the end, the team at Hammer & Hand did a great job on the door; I would be surprised if you would get a better built door from a European manufacturer.
Another really nice aspect to having my door built by Hammer and Hand was that I was able to utilize Hammer & Hand’s competence in furniture manufacturing and expertise in grain-matching of wood. This expertise produced a stunning result in the furniture-grade presentation of the wengé on the interior side of the door.
I am not seeking Passive House certification for my remodeling project. I simply want to improve the appearance and thermal performance of the existing building envelope. I emphasize both because I was willing to make tradeoffs to achieve a balance; you ultimately have to live in your house, and aesthetic appeal is an important component in one’s sense of well-being while living in the house.
My remodeling approach has been to address the weak points in the building envelope; typically that’s the doors and windows. My house was built in the mid-1980s, and for a house built 30 years ago it actually had pretty good thermal detailing: 2×6 exterior framing with batt insulation and triple-glazed windows, although the triple-glazed windows of 30 years ago are probably more in line with the performance of today’s double glazed windows. But my bottom line was to make the doors and windows less of a weak point in the building envelope.
While I could have ordered a stock door from a European manufacturer, the Hammer & Hand door is fully customized. I was a bit apprehensive about undertaking a full custom door project because I was concerned that I didn’t have the expertise to make it work, but the project turned out great. Hammer & Hand had the knowledge to take care of the engineering details, which allowed me to focus on the design and appearance of the door. This, in turn, allowed me the freedom to specify the door that I wanted. On a project like this, you want good communication with the door builder and Hammer & Hand was great at keeping me updated throughout. I would have never been able to achieve this level of communication had I attempted to order the door from a European manufacturer.
You never know how a project like this is going to turn out; you start out with a vision and hope that the end result meets with your vision. In this case, the end result did not disappoint! I was so glad to have worked with Hammer & Hand on this. I was also impressed with the care and craftsmanship with which Dan approached this project because it was a project that was personally quite important to me. Dan is now my go-to guy for doors!
Having looked at a lot of doors, it is my opinion that Hammer & Hand completely obliterates the need to get European doors because Hammer & Hand has the competence to engineer and build high performance doors here in the United States.
I really believe that people who are going to Europe for their Passive House doors need to rethink their beliefs.”
P.S. Check out this video about Ronald’s Passive House door:
Original Title: High Performance Door Custom Made in Traditional Style by H&H
Original Author: Laura Grange
Originally Posted on: January 7th, 2015
The Hammer & Hand woodshop in Portland has a new addition to its high performance door portfolio. The door, designed in a traditional style, breaks the conventional modern mold of high performance doors.
“It’s definitely the least contemporary type of Passive House door that we’ve built so far,” said H&H Woodshop Manager Dan Palmer of the door, built for a client in Minnesota. (To see examples of other Passive House doors, visit our custom high performance doors page).
Built by H&H’s craftspeople, our high performance doors meet stringent thermal performance requirements (which is important in places like Minnesota, where it is currently 1º – brrr!). Check out the photos below to get a glimpse at the process of crafting this unique custom door.
Photography by Jeff Tan.
Veteran H&H carpenter James Fox fine tunes the raised panels with a block plane.
H&H Woodshop Manager Dan Palmer applies West System Epoxy into the mortises of a door stile (above) and the loose tenons of the lock rail (below). The loose tenons are what give the door much of its strength.
Neoprene gasketing (the black strips) insures a proper air seal and allows the floating raised panels to expand and contract naturally as the seasons change.
The door stile is joined to the top, lock, and kick rails.
Two inches of polyiso insulation is glued between the raised panels to provide the door with high thermal resistance. The panels are clamped together with cauls as the glue dries.
The door, made of engineered stave core cherry, is finished with a custom stain and clear coated with three coats of Rudd Prothane (a clear exterior product designed for doors and windows). This double in-swing door stands six feet wide, eight feet tall, and four inches thick.
The traditional arched rail and panel double entry doors look like they could open up into a European villa, but perform as though they lead into a Passive House.
The door locks and creates an airtight seal using a Hoppe HLS9000 multipoint lock system with top and bottom shootbolts in both door leaves. Door hardware is Emtek’s Concord Style 2″ x 10″ Keyed.
The Hammer & Hand woodshop combines 20 years of woodworking experience with high performance building expertise to build custom doors in a variety of design aesthetics. Check out this custom high performance door client review post for a look at a modern style door.
Original Title: Craftsman Style Passive House Doors Custom Made by H&H
Original Author: Laura Grange
Originally Posted on: February 25th, 2016
High performance homes have had a reputation for being modernist cubes, fit only for those with a penchant for minimalist color schemes and simple design. These days, though, the Passive House movement has grown and high performance homes are being built in a variety of styles, including Craftsman.
“We’re getting more and more work of this nature,” said H&H Woodshop Manager Dan Palmer. “As Passive House becomes more popular, people are building houses that aren’t the typical modern box. They want houses that look more traditional but with the efficiency of Passive House.”
That’s where Hammer & Hand comes in. European Passive House door manufacturers don’t offer American craftsman style entry doors, but we do. Our shop can custom-build Passive House doors in a variety of styles, including Craftsman and Arts & Crafts.
From the outside no one would even know they are Passive House doors, but those four-inch thick doors are super insulated, air tight, and are thermally broken. Style and function – the perfect combination.
Two of a Kind
For a Passive House in Vancouver, B.C., the team (H&H’s Dan Palmer, Josh Tinker, and Jason Woods) built two doors – one for the front of the house and the other to serve as a back door.
- The door has silicone gaskets and a Hoppe 16mm wide multipoint lock. The lock and two gaskets are paired with adjustable strike plates and a third silicone gasket on the door jamb. These measures ensure long-term airtightness of the door assembly by creating a positive air seal from top to bottom.
- Back door on assembly table awaiting wood stops.
- Front entry and back door leaves completed and ready for finish.
- Back door after applying two coats of primer and two topcoats of client-specified latex paint in dark gray.
The doors are the same style but with different finishes for the front and back of the home:
Passive House Door & Custom Frame
The H&H woodshop also recently completed a craftsman style Passive House front door unit for a client in Vienna, Virginia. This piece included a high performance door and an outer perimeter frame with two sidelites and a transom. The team constructed them separately, connected the door and frame, and shipped the whole unit off to the client.
- Exterior side of door with polyiso and mahogany panels with dentil shelf installed.
- H&H carpenter Josh Tinker glazing the glass and installing the glass bead with pneumatic gun.
- Edge of jamb showing the installation of EPDM rubber gasketing placed in dado. This gasket is used to airseal the butt joints in the assembly.
- Top strike side edge of the door showing two silicone gaskets and activated hookbolts on AGB Poseidon multipoint lock.
- The interior face of the Passive House door unit with two coats of white primer. The homeowner will paint it to match the rest of the home’s interior design.
- The exterior face of the unit with custom oil based finish.
While the doors above look very similar, they were crafted from different inspiration photos provided to our woodshop by the clients. The close similarity in style demonstrates the growing trend of pairing modern high performance doors with traditional Craftsman style.
Learn more about our custom Passive House doors on our high performance doors page.
Original Title: Custom Passive House Door | Woodshop Video Series
Original Author: Douglas Killingtree
Originally Posted on: November 12th, 2021
Every Saturday in October, the Hammer & Hand YouTube posted an episode of our 5-part video series following the construction of a custom passive house door for a home in Idaho. Now that every episode has been posted, you can watch the entire project, from slab of wood to elegant and efficient high performance door. Watch the talented craftspeople in our woodshop skillfully cut and assemble this unique door in our Custom Passive House Door video series on YouTube!
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Check out our original blog post on this Custom Black Stained Passive House Entry Door.
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