Even House Climate Studio · For architects & their clients · Palewell
The mechanical plan your elevations deserve.
A design-build studio that treats heating and cooling as part of the architecture — radiant floors drawn with the stair sections, ventilation routed before the framing is, equipment hidden the way outlets are, and every system commissioned to numbers an energy rater signs.
What we do
What the studio draws and builds
Radiant design, room by room
In-floor and panel systems designed from the plans — tube spacing set by each room’s calculated loss, zones that follow how the house is actually lived in, and the manifold wall located where an architect would put a wine fridge, not where a plumber would put a manifold. Manual J on every project; the report goes in the drawing set.
Invisible mechanicals
High-velocity mini-ducts threaded through existing walls and laid out to Manual D so the furthest outlet still gets its air, slim-duct runs above dropped ceilings the lighting designer already wanted, outdoor units sited on the shade study and screened by the landscape plan. The equipment works hard at not being seen — decibels and sightlines quoted beside the SEER2 and HSPF2 figures.
Ventilation as part of the envelope
Heat-recovery ventilators balanced to the blower-door target, ducted to the rooms that need the air rather than the rooms that were easy to reach, and commissioned with the spreadsheet attached. A tight house without designed ventilation is a beautiful thermos; we make sure it breathes on purpose.
Referrals welcome; drawings read before fees are quoted. The first consultation happens at the drafting table, not in the basement.
The studio sequence
From drawing set to commissioned house
Four passes, each one inside the architect’s own rhythm — mechanical should never be the trade that asks for a do-over.
The reading
The drawing set read properly: glazing by orientation, the stair section checked against duct routes, the envelope understood before a single unit is chosen. Questions go back as markups, not phone calls.
The design sheet
Manual J room by room, the ventilation strategy, the radiant layout and the equipment schedule — issued as a sheet the set can carry, with the invisible routed and the visible approved by you and your architect together.
The build
One crew, our own employees, sequencing around framing and millwork instead of after them. Line sets hidden before drywall; the manifold wall trimmed out like cabinetry.
The commissioning
Airflow per register, water temperatures per loop, sound levels per room — measured against the design sheet’s promises and signed into an as-built binder your client keeps with the house.
After the photos
Care of the finished house
The Walkthrough
$290twice a year
- Spring and fall precision visits
- As-built binder kept current
- Member rate on any repair
The minimum a designed house deserves.
The Stewardship
$96/mo
- Everything in the Walkthrough
- Filter delivery matched to your grilles
- Annual design-vs-measured report
- Priority in the first heat wave
- Radiator & radiant loop balancing
For the houses whose systems are part of the architecture.
The Estate
from $180/mo
- Two systems — house and studio or pool house
- Quarterly visits, water chemistry included
- Energy model updated each year
- A single point of contact for all of it
For the properties with more moving parts than a small hotel.
They asked for the stair section in week one, flagged a duct route that would have cost us a niche we loved, and re-drew it as a markup on our own sheet. At commissioning the mechanical room measured quieter than the kitchen. My client thinks the house heats itself by magic, which is the correct experience.
The portfolio
Rooms where nothing shows
Three bids treated our house as a floor area; the studio treated it as a drawing. The Manual J said half the tonnage the others quoted, the radiant layout followed the way we actually live, and the January bill is a rounding error. I have sent them four neighbours.
The as-built binder is the detail nobody else offers. When we renovated the kitchen five years on, the contractor knew exactly what was in every wall — and the studio answered a question on a Tuesday from a commissioning sheet dated half a decade earlier.
I am an architect and I do not enjoy mechanical trades. Even House is the exception: they markup drawings, they hide things, they measure sound, and they hand my client a binder that makes me look better. They are on the sheet of every house I draw now.
Asked at the drafting table
Do you work only with architects?
Mostly, and by referral — but any owner with a drawing set and a serious intention gets the same reading. The studio is built around paper: plans, sections, a design sheet issued like a drawing. If a project has no drawings, we will happily help commission some first.
Radiant, ducted, ductless — do you have a favourite?
We have a method, not a favourite: the Manual J and the way the house is lived in pick the system. Most of our projects end up hybrid — radiant in the stone-floored rooms, hidden mini-ducts or slim ducts upstairs, zoning that follows the floor plan, and one quiet ductless head for the room with the afternoon sun problem.
What does “invisible mechanicals” mean in practice?
Line sets routed before drywall and never through an exterior wall; equipment sited from the shade study and screened from the landscape plan; the manifold wall treated as millwork. We quote the decibel figure and the sightline beside the efficiency rating — you approve what you will see and hear, not just what you will pay.
Can you work on a heritage house that must not show anything?
That is a specialty: high-velocity mini-ducts threaded through existing stud cavities, registers the size of a floor outlet, and grilles custom-painted to the woodwork’s colour. The Old Palewell houses we have done are photographed for magazines; none of the photographs contain our equipment.
What happens at the end of the warranty?
The as-built binder keeps its value: model serials, measured day-one numbers, the design sheet itself. Any competent technician can work from it — ours simply answer the phone faster, and the Stewardship plan keeps the measurements current so year twelve is compared against year one.
Bring the drawing set.
Even a napkin plan earns a proper reading. Tell us the project, the architect if there is one, and the room that worries you most.