This blog is about the design and construction of our vacation home in Kanab, Utah. We love hiking, we love the red rocks, we love the nearby National Parks, and decided we wanted to spend more time there. So after more than a year of scouting for the right location, we bought a lot in June 2022. Now our plans are ready, and we hope to get the building permit and start construction soon.

Kanab is a small town in the very south of Utah, minutes from Arizona. It’s situated in a beautiful location, surrounded by red cliffs, and the nearby scenery is featured in more than 100 movies and television shows. Kanab is also home to Best Friends Animal Society, the nation’s largest sanctuary for homeless animals.

For us, Kanab is an easy five hours drive straight south from Salt Lake City: two hours on highway followed by three hours on smaller, scenic roads. It’s warmer, has less snow, and more sunny days (256 vs 222).

It took us a while to find the right lot. Some of what we were looking for:

Views: Almost any lot in Kanab will have a view of red rocks in the distance. Far views are nice, but we wanted more spectacular views, closer to the rocks.

Internet: We want to be able to work while we’re there, and people who rent it will also want to stay connected. Fast internet is a must. That ruled out options in the wilderness; closer to town, gigabit internet is available.

The term ‘passive house’ may easily give the wrong impression of being 100% passive. A passive house improves and emphasizes the static components and design of a house (walls, windows, insulation, orientation) so that the active components (heating, cooling) can be minimized. This results in significant energy savings as well as improvements in comfort.

My brother Bjørn Kierulf at Createrra has built over 100 passive houses in Slovakia and elsewhere in Europe, so when we started this project, it was natural that we would build this way. I’m not an expert, but have been learning a lot, so I want to give a layman’s overview on how to design and build a passive house.

Kanab is at 5000 ft elevation (1524 meters), in a cold semi-arid climate zone, getting only 13.5 inches (343 mm) of precipitation per year. And Kanab has experienced a severe drought. So the landscaping around the house will obviously be xeriscape, no lawn.

Too little water is a serious issue, but so is too much water. Localized rainstorms are common here, and with the rocky landscape, the water will just run off instead of soaking in, leading to flash floods. This is especially dangerous in narrow canyons, as tragically witnessed by recent deaths and dramatic rescues in Buckskin Gulch. Kanab itself also experienced flooding a few years ago.

As a vacation home, most anything will work when it’s just the two of us. But the house also has to work when we bring friends and family. And it has to work as a vacation rental when we’re not there.

Lots of tradeoffs – we want to keep it as small as we can, but not cramped. Comfortable, flexible, and practical, not luxurious.

Constraints

The architectural committee of the HOA has some restrictions. The most relevant:

I started drawing possible floor plans as soon as we started looking at lots – I wanted to be sure we could make them work. My architect brother provided feedback, then I went off and drew another idea. A year of looking at different lots gave me some practice. Once we zeroed in on our lot and started working with the PHPP spreadsheet to estimate heat gains, the drawings became more realistic.