Nearly three years in the past, when George Kontaroudis and Meg Metzger, a Brooklyn couple, purchased an 800-square-foot home on the Greek island of Skopelos, there was excellent news and unhealthy information, and it wasn’t refined.
Excellent news: The century-old home, which sat on the plush island the place the 2008 film “Mamma Mia” was filmed, was listed for a mere 41,000 euros (about $42,300).
Unhealthy information: It had a mysterious boulder taking on a lot of the bottom ground, and an advert hoc sheet of plywood as an alternative of a entrance door. These inconveniences went far to elucidate why the property had languished available on the market for nearly a decade. (The couple in the end paid 36,000 euros — about $37,120.)
Excellent news: Mr. Kontaroudis, 44, who grew up in Athens, spent his childhood summers on Skopelos, and the property was a brief stroll from the place his dad and mom nonetheless personal a house. The couple may give their youngsters, Thalia (now 6) and Artemis (now 2), the identical halcyon expertise as their father (minus the possibility to check out as extras in “Mamma Mia,” a possibility the 20-something Mr. Kontaroudis turned down with out remorse as a result of “I used to be too cool,” he recalled).
Unhealthy information: The situation was on a lane that lacked car entry. All renovation supplies must be hauled uphill by a motorized wheelbarrow or a donkey. The donkey’s day fee was greater than $200, so the couple opted for the wheelbarrow.
Excellent news: Mr. Kontaroudis is an architect who likes a problem. He not solely repaired the house’s evident flaws however in doing so created the primary licensed passive home on Skopelos, an energy-efficient constructing that stands as much as the Mediterranean’s more and more vicious local weather extremes.
First, in fact, he had to determine tips on how to get in. Due to the hilly terrain, the primary entrance was on the second ground, and it was initially reached by an exterior staircase rising from the entrance yard subsequent door. This was not an inconvenience to the unique house owners of the adjoining properties, who had been sisters. However the present neighbor wished to disclaim the suitable of solution to any future occupants. Earlier than the home was put available on the market, the vendor dutifully encased the prevailing stair in concrete in order that the doorway was now not accessible and punched a rudimentary new door on the bottom ground.
After sketching a number of prospects, Mr. Kontaroudis opted to maintain a ground-floor entrance straight beneath the place the previous entrance door had been.
Then he handled the boulder.
“It wasn’t precisely a boulder,” Ms. Metzger, 40, who’s a ceramicist, clarified. 100 years in the past, when builders with their restricted hand instruments and transportation choices (see donkeys) discovered an enormous rock on a building web site, they tended to not take away it however to encase it in concrete and let it’s. Turning a rock right into a concrete block allowed the encompassing area for use extra effectively.
The couple had been resigned, like their predecessors, to cohabiting with the block and taking advantage of their higher two flooring, which comprised lower than 500 sq. toes. Then they realized throughout demolition that a big portion of the mass was friable sand, and all of it may go. The renovated residence has a first-floor visitor room, one and a half loos and a third-floor main bed room, off which the women share an alcove.
The founding father of KWH structure, in Brooklyn, Mr. Kontaroudis is a specialist in passive home building, which seeks to offer optimum indoor air high quality and cozy temperatures. That is achieved, as he described it, by way of “good insulation, a leak-free constructing envelope, top quality home windows and doorways and a constantly working mechanical air flow system.”
Mr. Kontaroudis organized for a bunch of builders from the mainland metropolis of Thessaloniki to attend a coaching course within the know-how. When it got here time to start building, he put them up on the island.
“We rented them a villa, and it was like ‘The Actual World,’” Ms. Metzger mentioned. “Everyone had a good time.”
Underneath the supervision of an area contractor and with detailed drawings and all the required supplies, the crew accomplished the renovation in three and a half months at a value of about $206,000.
As with many passive homes, the improvements had been designed to be felt however not seen. The stucco that coats the partitions as a main barrier to air leaks is frequent in Greece. And although a second, thick stucco layer with bits of cork was an insulation novelty imported from Italy, its properties meant that the partitions may stay authentically crooked. (Insulation positioned inside the partitions, quite than utilized to the floor, would have required the partitions to be straightened, shedding not solely appeal but in addition a substantial quantity of area.)
The builders reclaimed no matter they might of the unique supplies, together with pine flooring and casework and any chestnut roof beams that weren’t devoured by bugs. The home additionally got here with a trove of furnishings and artifacts, a few of which the couple saved and supplemented with antiques from Athens, merchandise from Ikea and Ms. Metzger’s handmade pendant lamps, sconces and sinks.
Final summer time, the passive-house know-how was put to the take a look at when Greece endured a warmth wave that resulted within the deaths of a number of vacationers. The household managed with a single air-conditioner — “the smallest available on the market,” Mr. Kontaroudis mentioned.
A extra quantitative story, he added, might be instructed by the sensors put in to measure power use and air high quality: “Inside a few years, we’ll have a knowledge set that demonstrates how this home has carried out.”
For now, he has instructed the schoolteacher who rents the home within the non-summer months to be happy to make any changes for his consolation.
As of mid-December, when the climate on Skopelos is usually chilly and wet, he added, the warmth had not been turned on.
