In 2012, Prossimo cofounder Ben Freed needed an affordable energy efficient house. Why? Because he and his wife couldn’t afford the massive, oil-sucking monstrosities that were on the market in his locale in upstate New York.
to get a modestly-sized, energy efficient home built for him and his wife. Simple enough, right? Wrong!
No one would build it for the budget, no one would design it for a reasonable price, and in fact many in the industry said it was flat-out impossible.
He got connected with Passive House legend/building science genius David White, principal at Right Environments. David took on Ben’s challenge to build an affordable, safe, comfortable and energy efficient home. Little did they know the challenges that lay ahead.
We won’t get into the nitty gritty here, but suffice to say, after a grueling, 2.5 year journey, Ben and his wife actually managed to build their home, with a bank loan, for around $170k. He designed it, drafted it and GC’ed it himself with no prior construction or architecture experience.
Of course, he couldn’t have done it without the tireless help of David White, who became a great mentor and friend to Ben throughout the project.
Well, it’s as airtight as a passive house, requires only one mini-split unit to heat and cool, is filled with natural light, gets continuous, filtered fresh air ventilation, has a completely even indoor temperature year round and is net-zero. Not bad!
And one of the main pain-points Ben saw was the expense involved in obtaining high-performance windows. He thought: there’s got to be a better way.
So, Ben and his long-time friend and serial entrepreneur Jared Madsen formed Prossimo LLC to completely revolutionize the North American building industry.
