About

Why We Started Apogee

High-performance and Passive House buildings require specially designed building products and components. It turns out that many of these products are virtually unknown, hard to find, and difficult to source. To create any type of high-performance building including net zero energy, Living Building, LEED, net zero carbon, or zero emissions, has in the past required a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating search for the right components.

Apogee makes it easy and quick to find products, the manufacturers who product them, and the suppliers who stock them. We’ve done the work of finding them for you and arranging them by categories. Learning about great products from friends and at conferences is great, but it is slower. We're harnessing the internet to get information to you quickly and efficiently. But our work is not finished. We are constantly on the lookout for new technologies, new manufacturers, suppliers stocking them, and existing high-performance products just entering the North American market.

Occasionally, something slips past us, and that’s where you come in. We invite you to suggest high-performance products. If we include the product you suggest, we will acknowledge you and your company along with the product you suggested. Click here to suggest the product.

Every effort to create better buildings that each of us makes is, in reality, a collaborative one. So, please contribute your suggestions. Help us crowdsource our information. We look forward to a fruitful collaboration with you as we work together to create high-performance buildings.

Who We Are

Apogee was started by people with a passion for sustainability and cutting-edge building performance.

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Tad Everhart

Starting in 2009 with help from his brother Garth and many others, Tad and his family retrofitted their home to the Passive House standard for existing buildings, a standard called EnerPHit. Tad’s family cut its home energy consumption by 50 percent and its greenhouse gas emissions resulting from home operating energy to zero.

The whole process opened Tad’s eyes to the world of high-performance building envelope products and equipment. It was far larger than the tiny world of visqueen, fiberglass batts, and 80 percent efficient gas furnaces he knew as a homebuilder in the 1990s.

Apogee grows out of support from manufacturers, suppliers, architects, builders, consultants, and fellow building Certifiers in the Passive House industry. Tad is thankful to people who have shared product news with him: customers and colleagues in his work at CertiPHIers Cooperative, a co-op of Passive House Institute-accredited building Certifiers; other Certifiers in the North American Certifiers Circle; the Passive House Institute; and Passive House creators Tad meets in his work helping Mary James at Low Carbon Productions publish free books and the new Passive House Buildings magazine about the North American Passive House industry.

Tad searches for products, manufacturers, and suppliers to keep Apogee’s lists current and comprehensive.

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Garth Everhart

Garth is Tad’s brother and has been a builder and real estate developer for the past 25 years.  Garth’s focus has been on high-density infill housing and livable communities.  He has owned and operated multiple construction companies that have built row houses, apartments and single-family homes in the Portland, Oregon metro area. He concentrates on financial and marketing activities for Apogee.

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Kurt Cobb

Kurt is a marketing communications and publicity strategist and freelance writer who serves a variety of clients. He also writes commentary on energy and the environment and maintains a widely read blog called Resource Insights.  At Apogee Kurt composes and manages content for the site and also helps guide marketing activities.

Trademark Notice

Apogee Passive House Products Marketplace, the Apogee logotype and the phrase Current, Comprehensive and Carefully Considered are trademarks of Tad Everhart Energy Advisor LLC.