We ship our passive house designs and kits across Canada and the US. Find out what this means.
Your most affordable passive option
We hear again and again that our pre-certified passive house kit or building system is the most affordable passive option available to our customers.
We’ve heard this from Ontario to Nova Scotia, across the United States, all the way to the west coast.
It’s one of the driving factors for why we’ve worked so hard to make the kit easily available to anyone in the continential US or Canada.
Against each of our 50+ passive house plans, we include a Cost Analysis document, which includes both the cost of purchasing the kit from us and very clear estimates on all other related costs to get you to the turnkey stage with your new home.
In this post, we’re digging into what it means to buy our kit in order to build your new passive home.
What is a passive house kit?
The most essential thing about a passive house is its building envelope. This is what we also call the weathertight shell.
EkoBuilt’s passive house kit contains all of the components to get your home to that weathertight stage, essentially the complete wall assembly, roof truss system, windows and doors.
We ship our proprietary passive house components (various sheathings and barriers) from our HQ in Ottawa, Canada; we source some of the lumber components and roof truss system in your local area; and passive house doors and windows are shipped straight to you.
Our “kit only” components get you to that weathertight shell stage, but our cost analysis documents help you to budget for your total turnkey build, including all exterior and interior finishes, and mechanical systems.
Did you know? We do also offer our kit as a prefab wall assembly.
Kit and shipping costs
Let’s look at the Hummingbird plan as an example (interior shown above). By far one of our most popular plans, the base Hummingbird kit cost $198,530 the last time we prepared our Cost Analysis document. This includes a $50,000 allowance for pre-certified passive house windows and doors (which you are free to source separately, though it’s vital for the home’s performance that these be certified passive).
Our document also includes suggested pricing to get the house to the drywall stage, as well as a suggested budget for interior finishes. There are very few exclusions in our cost analysis documents: building permits, site preparation, project management.
In our immediate local area, we can ship our kit for as little as $1,500. Below are some rough shipping costs to get our kit to various zones across Canada and the US:
| Zone | Approx Cost CAD |
| Ontario, Quebec, New York State | $3,500 |
| Nova Scotia, Maine, Michigan | $5,000 |
| Southeastern US (NC, Virginia, etc.) | $6,000 |
| Georgia, Florida, Utah | $7,500 |
| West Coast, Arizona, New Mexico | $10,000 |
What you need for peace of mind
As simple as our solution is, any whole home building project can feel overwhelming.
We offer a lot of resources for builders and carpenters, and if you’re able to engage an experienced local contractor who can handle the entire project for you, that’s all you’ll need.
We provide a 70-page Builder’s Handbook, material lists, and quality checklists for every stage of the build, as well as a phone call with the person who is considering taking on your project.
EkoBuilt’s Consulting Package
For the homeowner who is unsure about finding someone locally who can run with the project, or who is full of enthusiasm but lacking confidence on the technical points, we have a Consulting Package ($7,500 CAD).
This is also appropriate for self-builds or projects where you can engage contractors, but they are less experienced. Given that project management can run from $30k to $50k on a whole home build, this is a strategic way to save money while ensuring technical expertise.
EkoBuilt’s Passive House Consulting Package means that we’ll handle all of the technical decisions on your home’s build. You will find the local carpenter or builder and sub-trades (we offer guidance on this too), but we will take it from there, including:
- Creating a detailed Project Schedule with all of the dependencies and milestones for your project (e.g. when sub-trades need to be booked, how they can overlap in the schedule, etc.)
- Communicating with contractors and trades to answer their questions, provide clarification, etc.
Building your passive home
Whether you go with the Consulting Package or you decide to run all project management locally, EkoBuilt is here for you.
A key part of building our weathertight shell is based on sourcing some lumber components and all roof trusses locally. This is environmentally responsible, more cost effective, and in the case of your roof, ensures that local knowledge and expertise on local climate factors (e.g. snow loads) will contribute to your home’s resilience.
We always expect to speak with your key contractors to answer questions and we always provide tips on logistical matters (e.g. ensuring a forklift is available to unload at your end).
Learn more from our three-part Finding a Builder blog series on our Resources for Homeowners page. Or just give us a shout! We’re here to talk.
