Hello all!  Welcome to the Friday blog.  My name is Andrew and I’m a second, going on third year Master of Architecture student on the Empowerhouse team.  Since we are in a holding pattern for the build right now, working on shop drawings and such, I’ve decided to make a pitch for Empowerhouse based on a less typical but equally important area of function, mainly performance in the zombie apocalypse (it could start tomorrow).  You may think, hmmmm well how would Empowerhouse suit me any better than another house and give me a better chance of survival in the zombie apocalypse?  Easy, it’s a passive house based design with awesome additions created by those ingenious and sleep deprived architecture and engineering students from Parsons and Stevens.  You may continue considering would a passive house perform any different than other houses during the uprising of the unfathomable undead?  Absolutely.  Paired down, passive house means thicker and more insulated walls, combined with little or no windows that are also very thick.  What does this means in energy terms?  Trap heat in during the winter to keep you warm, use shading to stay cool in the summer.  What does this means in terms of zombies?  More protection against inevitable attacks from agitated automatons.  Advantage Empowerhouse.

Thicker walls will make it a lot harder for those rotting suckers to punch through your outer walls.  Combine that with the fact that we added Timbersil and Cement Board to the outside… hard materials, and beefed up that glass, and you can stay calm inside you house while those mindless meddlesome undead try to punch, kick, claw and bite their way in.  Not to mention that timbersil is glass impregnated wood that is fire resistive so in the improbable situation that the zombies breathe fire or have dragons, you should still be moderately safe.  Above and beyond that we added a small and efficient PV array to the top of Empowerhouse that should cover all your electrical needs, even powering your refrigerator full of beer and maybe food.  So after you board up the windows and doors, you know, just in case they turn out to be super strong, you can sit back and enjoy a nice cold one and forget about the doom outside that has a fat chance of getting in.  Did I also mention we gave you a second story?  Well….sort of.  While under normal circumstances this light tower might filter in nice natural daylight into your house and give you a small reading nook.  In the case of the rising undead and possibly your great uncle Melvin, you have a lookout to determine when the time is right to go forage for more supplies.  No more opening a window or door to do that leaving you potentially exposed.  By my count that is Empowerhouse 3, Zombies 0.

Mind you, while I hold no formal degree in zombieology or undead survival, I have watched a whole lot of tv, movies and even read a book about zombies once.  That combined with that fact that I am a architecture student who has been studying the subject for 7 years seems to give me some weight in the field.  So where would you want to be during the zombie apocalypse (you know it’s right around the corner)?  I might be a bit biased, but I’d like to be in an Empowerhouse sipping a cold beer listening to the futile banging of lifeless limbs trying to get in.