The model house by Haus.me is installed at UNIT.City. It is the smallest house of the company’s declared series of houses – 40 sq.m (there are also models 80 and 160 sq.m. big). The house has already been sold – the park plans to place an innovative sales department in it for its residential complex that is currently under construction. In the meantime, Maksym shows us the interior and exterior.

“Haus.me is a turnkey product. A person buys it the same as a yacht – with furniture, appliances, bedding, and cups. Just put it on the grass or any flat surface and its ready for you to move in,” he says.

Lego-like House

According to Maksym, Haus.me is a constructor. It consists entirely of pre-fabricated modules. To assemble it, you do not need to hire specially trained people – any team of workers armed with screwdrivers can handle it. You just need to follow the instructions, like you do to assemble IKEA furniture. Thanks to this, the house is not only easy to assemble (assembling it from scratch takes from 7 to 14 days) but also cheaper than the construction of permanent buildings.

“The biggest problem that the construction world is currently facing is significantly increased payroll costs. In America, it accounts for an average of about 65% of the cost of the building, in Ukraine, it is 30-35%. This is a lot. We reached the labor cost in the first pilot project at the level of 4.3%,” says Herbut.

The house is assembled at the production site of Haus.me or its franchisee partners (there are 2 of them to date), after which it is delivered to the buyer in a ready-made condition.

The manufacturer gives up to 15 years guarantee for separate units of the house. Even if one of them fails, it can be replaced, like a cube in the Lego constructor. And even the courier who will deliver the unit will be able to replace it – Maksym claims: 

“The house is built so that we won’t go anywhere to perform maintenance works. A German branded drive with a door closer for 750 euros puts us away by 10 years from repairing the shelf above the sofa. The door unit’s cost is as much as $6,000, but we give a 15-year manufacturer’s warranty on it.” 

The Exterior

The case is entirely made of fiberglass frameless technology. Yachts are also made from this material, and the technology is used in the construction of civil aircraft. The material boasts high heat-insulating and earthquake-resistant properties. 

All connections are seamless; only double-glazed windows are glued in – like a windshield in a car body. Such windows can withstand a hurricane or an earthquake, and the windows won’t crack, Maksym asserts. 

“We did not immediately come to this. The first three houses we built were equipped with classic windows. Once, the lifting frame broke and one house fell from the crane. As a result of the fall, all the glasses broke. We thought to ourselves, is it possible to make sure that even when the house falls, the windows remain intact? So we invented the technology and patented it,” he says. 

According to Maksym, windows in PassivDom houses have record-high thermal insulation performance. The total window thickness is about 250 mm, it has 6 energy-saving tempered glasses. Window design is protected by an international patent.

“This is the warmest mass-produced window in the world to date. In 2016, we applied to the Guinness Book of Records, they approved, said that we needed to document it – it cost us $1,700, which we did not have at that time. So we stopped pursuing the matter,” he recalls.

The door is also made of glass, it opens by fingerprint, face recognition or through the application. 

The Interior

Everything we see inside the house is included in the basic package. The room is made in the studio style, only the bathroom is located in a separate room. However, the kitchen can also be “closed”, like a cupboard, if at the moment it is not needed.

The kitchen is equipped with a full-size refrigerator, coffee machine, microwave, multicooker, and dishwasher space. All class A devices (5+), to save energy. There are enough cupboards to store dishes and small household appliances. The tabletop is made of artificial stone (quartzite).

Lighting and climate control are voice-controlled.

“When you sit down to watch a movie, just say ‘turn on the video’ – the projector drops down, the windows close (in the basic configuration the window is covered with a DLC-film, the window becomes dull). You can also turn on the music,” says Herbut.

The ceiling and wall panels are made of fabrics, the floor is matted, made of natural walnut. This creates soft acoustics and, despite the fact that the house has a lot of glossy surfaces, there is no echo in the room.

The bathroom is fully functional and surprisingly capacious. With shower and full-size washbasin. All taps, mixers, light switches are equipped with proximity sensors.

Water is supplied from the water supply, but there is an option for an autonomous supply. To do this, an additional module with a 2-ton water tank is connected to the house. It is filled by a system that generates water from the air. At the same time, another shower is installed in such a bathroom – it circulates water, saving up to 80% of the resource (such technologies are used by NASA). 

Autonomous sewage system is made in the form of an additional unit with a septic tank integrated into it. It can work both independently and can be equally hooked up to an external sewer.

It all costs an additional $40,000. But such a house can be put even in the mountains, even in the middle of the desert, or just on the beach. 

An air quality control system, a heat pump, and an air conditioning system are above the kitchen. It allows users to adjust the temperature, humidity, indoor air quality (carbon dioxide level, odors, formaldehyde, dust, ionization, ultraviolet, etc.). 

“We can guarantee that the house is 99.9% protected from any bacteria and viruses, even if a person with the flu comes inside. The same system applies to water: if the water that enters the house is very dirty, and outside there is a fire, carbon monoxide and so on – you are safe inside. By the way, the fiberglass from which the facade is made does not burn,” says Maksym.

All systems can be controlled using remotes located throughout the house, voice or through a mobile application.

Smart house

The closed technical compartment contains a water purification and disinfection system, a 100-liter boiler, a reverse osmosis system that supplies drinking water to the kitchen, and other important utility systems. 

Power control system is also installed here. The house is powered by lithium iron phosphate batteries, for which Haus.me gives a 10-year guarantee. 

“Globally, there are only three manufacturers who make batteries for 5,000-7,000 cycles. For comparison: lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles have up to 1,000 cycles,” Maksym explained.

Nearby lies the “brain” of the house. Voice control and a door that opens with “face” – this is far from all that it can do. According to Maksym, it is a complex system that analyzes the state of the environment and patterns of human behavior, captured from many sensors in real time (there are about a hundred of them in total).

Thanks to this, the house can, among other things:

• Determine exactly how many people are in it. Based on this information, it regulates the energy consumption for heating / cooling the room. 
• Close the tap, door or refrigerator if the owner forgets to do it. All this is to save energy.
• Automatically adjust lighting based on the needs and preferences of a person.

All house systems are connected to the server and transmit data to the cloud. According to Maksym, this is anonymous data – there are no cameras in the house:

“We are heat spots, and the house does not know which of us is who. In general, talking about privacy 12 years after the creation of the iPhone is stupid. Only a word is left of privacy. You have to put up with it.”

The house can be switched to manual control mode to adjust lighting, temperature and other little things yourself. “But who wants Tesla without an autopilot?” says Maksym.

The source of all energy

Haus.me claims that their houses are 100% self-sufficient. And there are no analogs in the world.

“Many can build a beautiful model house with thorough attention to detail. Then stuff it with sensors, which is not rocket science. But if you want to build an autonomous house, you have no right to take energy from somebody else. The house should not be connected to electricity or gas. The only way you can get energy is from the sun,” Herbut explains.

The problem is that besides the roof, there is nowhere to install solar panels. That is, the roof should generate enough energy to not only cool the house in the summer when there is plenty of solar energy but also to heat it in the winter when things are much worse with the generation of energy. 

The roof of a 40-square house cannot generate more than 7 kW per hour on a sunny day. On a cloudy winter day, it will be possible to generate about 1.5 kW per hour. At the same time, heating and other ordinary functions of any other ordinary house require 10-15 kW per hour. 

“You can put a battery that costs a million dollars, and charge it all summer, and drain it all winter. But anyone can build a house worth a million, but we decided to build it for $100,000. To do this, we had to make very warm windows, walls and energy-efficient air conditioning, heating systems, etc., so that mere 1.5 kilowatts would be enough to power everything. Not a single company in the world has done this before us,” says the founder of Haus.me. 

Ins and outs of self-sufficiency

In terms of thermal conductivity, a 23 cm thick fiberglass frame equals to a brick wall 9 meters thick. Five-chamber windows also minimize heat loss. We abandoned the use of wood and steel so that there would be no cold bridges in the house. 

The water-saving system allows you not to warm it in vain when you wash your hands. The automatic closing of the doors does not let the excess cold into the room. A ventilation system with air quality monitoring allows you to take as little fresh air from the street as possible so as not to waste energy on heating it, but instead work with what is already available.

The house saves literally on everything, using the heat not only from the sun but also from the human body. When talking, a person releases approximately 150 W/h of heat. Three will generate 450 W/h, and if there are 6 people in the house at the same time, then at -20 °C outside there is no need to heat the room. 

“Imagine that in winter 5 people enter the house, but the house does not know about it and heats the room. It’s an evening on the street, the sun is no longer there, the electricity accumulated during the day is wasted to heat the air, and the five of us heated it so much that you have to turn on the cooling, wasting precious energy. In order to prevent such nonsense, we developed a software that understands the situation in real time and spends energy only on what is really essential,” says Herbut. 

– All these inconspicuous nuances allowed us to reduce the heat loss of this house to 860 Watts at -20 °C outside. It is 20 times less than in an ordinary apartment. We managed to fit into 1.5 kW and still save a little bit in reserve, which you can use to sustain the house for another week, even if the house is covered with snow.”

You can use the application to check exactly how much energy is stored in the batteries. There are statistics of everything that happens in the house: how energy is spent and on what, how ventilation works, how much energy is generated per day, etc. All information is reflected in graphs.

Zombie-proof house from Ukraine

In Ukraine, the smallest Haus.me house costs from $80,000 to $190,000 depending on the configuration. Of this price, $50,000 is the frame, the rest is the filling.

“All the electronics here is three times more expensive than the house itself. All components are from Germany, Sweden, America. Only parquet and canvas on the ceiling are made in Ukraine,” explains Herbut.

In the US, a price for such a house starts at $199,999 and up to a million. Given the mobility and the lack of the need to obtain building permits – it is quite a good offer for Americans.

According to Maksym, the company has more than 14,000 requests from potential buyers from around the world. Most of them are in California and New York, where the housing market is oversaturated. Haus.me is mainly interested in people in the age categories of 25-35 and 65-75 years. For older people, this is a hassle-free housing, and for young people – a competitor to a trailer or a lifelong mortgage.

“All applications came by themselves – from publications. We haven’t spent a dime on advertising since the company’s founding and didn’t nudge the audience in any way,” says Herbut. 

It all happened by accident. In 2016, Maksym and the team made the first prototype and brought it to the KyivBuild 23 exhibition. In order to attract attention to the project, Herbut posted ironic descriptions of various configurations of the house on the PassivDom website. One of them was the “Zombie Apocalypse House”, which was offered with additional protection against hacking, a supply of toilet paper, a dummy of a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a gift copy of the Bible.

This post caught the eye of a journalist from TechCrunch, who then wrote an article about “Zombie proof house from Ukraine.”

“Back then I did not know what a startup is, nor what kind of an outlet TechCrunch was. A friend called me and asked, “What did you do to get the U.S. Singularity University to repost the TechCrunch article about you?” And the next day, 7 million visitors came to our website and immediately crashed it,” says Maksym. 

Following TechCrunch, Business Insider, Financial Times, BBC and others wrote about the Ukrainian zombie-proof house. The article has a long tail that still stretches from Haus.me.

Business model and sales

The company has 28 manufacturing partners who make house segments for Haus.me, as well as two partners who assemble and sell ready-made houses.

“We provide them with leads from our website and charge a small margin for each house sold. But the main model is connecting to our smart house system. That is, in the future, our main income will be from software, not from the house,” says Herbut. 

The service package includes (these are the basic services, for each individual country they may be different, says Maksym):

1. Control of remote access to the house – the ability to give access inside, manage the house and its systems in the mode of leasing the house.
2. Security – video surveillance around the house, face recognition, alarm notifications, notification of security and fire services.
3. Cloud-based storage of data, settings, media content – an iCloud analog with the ability to transfer settings, applications and content to new houses or to other Haus.me houses that you rent, for example, in another location.
4. Round-the-clock monitoring of all house systems by the control center (for b2b and the elderly).
5. Extended warranty – full coverage of all house needs, service, maintenance, filter replacement, software update.

Currently, all services are available for $66 per month, including television, video surveillance and security. In the future, a minimum of services will be provided free of charge, and a Maksymum package will cost up to $300.

The sales plan for 2020 is 30 houses. And before the end of this year, Haus.me plans to manufacture and sell only 6 houses. The company needs to get certification in the United States to deliver the houses to their clients. According to Herbut, this process will take a few months for each state.

In Ukraine, certification is not needed. “It is not a major building, there are no connections to the power grids, you do not need a project for gas or electricity. Have a land plot? Go ahead and mount it!” says Maksym.

In addition, Andrey Kolodyuk, the managing partner of the AVentures Capital fund, is also involved in the case (in the portfolio of the Petcube fund, Depositphotos, SolarGaps; the second managing partner is Evgeny Sysoev). 

AIN.UA shares the details of the case.

What happened

Andriy Stetsovsky sued PassivDom for allegedly illegal dismissal in 2018. Herbut fired him in the fall of 2018 for absenteeism, but Stetsovsky denied this version and, as a result, filed a lawsuit, adding also the requirement to pay arrears in salary. 

Plaintiff’s viewpoint

According to the court ruling, Stetsovsky worked at PassivDom as deputy development director with a salary of UAH 20,054 per month since August 2017. Since August 2018, he was no longer paid salary nor traveling allowances. 

In November of that year, the plaintiff filed a letter of resignation of his own free will, but it was ignored. Also, the employer did not return his workbook.

Later, after resorting to the court to protect his rights, he learned about the existence of truancy records, and on January 31, 2019, he received a notice of dismissal. In the days of supposed absenteeism, the plaintiff, according to his words, was on a business trip and on sick leave.

In this regard, Stetsovsky asked the court to recognize his dismissal as unlawful and pay him a total of UAH 200,000 (salary arrears, severance pay, travel and leave allowances).

Defendant’s viewpoint

Herbut objected to the above arguments claiming that the plaintiff did not have documents that would confirm the fact of his business trip – no one officially sent him there. 

He also stated that the plaintiff did not properly inform him of his quitting, was absent from the workplace without any good reason, and then completely ceased coming to work.

Other former and current PassivDom employees also participated as witnesses in the court hearing.

What do Andrey Kolodyuk and AVentures Capital have to do with it?

One of the evidence items supporting the version of Andriy Stetsovsky in court was the document that was issued to him by the AVentures Capital fund. It says that during the last three months of 2018, during alleged absenteeism, Stetsovsky, on behalf of PassivDom, worked with the AVentures fund on “drafting and conclusion of contracts.” However, this document, signed by Andrey Kolodyuk, managing partner of the AVentures fund, did not become a proper proof for the court: the power of attorney from Herbut, on the basis of which Stetsovsky allegedly worked with AVentures in September and October, was canceled back in June.

Simply put, when Stetsovsky allegedly worked with AVentures on behalf of PassivDom – as evidenced by the paper issued by the fund – he did not have the authority to do so. Also in the court decision, there is no data on providing the court with evidence to support the fact that the cooperation really took place.

The editors of AIN.UA asked AVentures fund for a comment:

“I don’t comment on the cases of other people and especially pending ones (the appeal was filed)! Herbut is now in court in America with his investors and we need to wait for their decision!” Andrey Kolodyuk replied to AIN.UA’s request regarding the case in Ukraine. 

What exactly was the collaboration of AVentures with Stetsovsky as a representative of PassivDom during this period, documented by the paper, and whether there is evidence of this cooperation? AIN.UA did not receive answers to these questions from the AVentures fund. 

It is noteworthy that in the past, Andrey Kolodyuk, according to Herbut, CEO of PassivDom, tried to seize a stake in PassivDom through extortion and blackmail. And after a while, Andrey’s fund, AVentures gives the ex-employee of PassivDom a piece of paper, which does not turn out to be proper evidence, but at the same time actually helps create troubles for PassivDom. Kolodyuk himself did not comment to AIN.UA about the connection between the paper and the extortion charges.

Herbut also commented on a court in the United States, “In the United States there is not a single court with our company. There is a statement on which the court did not even schedule a single hearing since the applicant lied in a statement and could not substantiate a single claim. The case has not been accepted by the court for consideration until the applicant either formulates his claims again or the parties come to an agreement”.

Ruling of the court

Having heard the versions of the parties and the testimonies of witnesses, the court decided to reject the plaintiff’s claims because of the lack of supporting documents. The court also decided to pay the defendant UAH 21,000 as compensation for legal costs. This decision may be challenged in the Kyiv Court of Appeal.

“Since October 16, our company PassivDom Corp. officially presents a new brand name and a new website — haus.me,” Maksym Herbut said.

According to him, the new name contains a reference to the German roots of the startup Passiv Haus (previously, Maksym spent 15 years running a Ukrainian-German construction company).

Rebranding is planned in the Western markets, where the company intends to develop under a new name. According to Herbut, Haus.me is preparing to present a new international team and kick off in new countries.

In Ukraine, the company will continue operating under the brand PassivDom, since the company is already well known in the domestic market.

“We still think we are a Ukrainian company and intend to continue the operations of our R&D center in Kyiv,” he said.

To recap, sales of PassivDom’s houses have kicked off in Ukraine. The houses are solar-powered and come with a price tag starting at $54,000.

In his op-ed Gerbut claims that Kolodyuk was one of the first potential investors from Ukraine. According to the founder of PassivDom, Kolodyuk said he was ready to leave the fund, becoming part of the startup team:

“Our first contact with a toxic investor in Ukraine is with Andrey Kolodyuk, who said that he wants to quit his job in the fund and join us as a co-founder, but in reality he tried to get 35% stake in the company for advisory agreement consulting services. Andrey said that he kept his plans to co-found a Ukrainian startup in secret from his fund partners.”

Gerbut writes that when he realized that there would be no investment, and Kolodyuk wanted in for nothing, he bade farewell to him. After that, the founder of PassivDom writes, problems began to surface:

Emails with threats to tell everyone in the world how bad we are (all Ukrainian investors, the US embassy, investment funds, etc.) poured in. Despite the saved correspondence, Andrey even made a documented written attempt to extort $250,000, threatening with concrete actions to destroy our reputation. After we proposed to continue the correspondence in court, the toxic investor disappeared from our lives. As a result, it cost us reputational blows and the loss of three investment transactions with Ukrainian investors to the tune of just over one million dollars two years ago.

AIN.UA has reached out to Andrey Kolodyuk for comments regarding the words of Gerbut. Kolodyuk neither confirmed nor denied Gerbut’s words:

Maksym Herbut’s op-ed produces no evidence of his words. Similar accusations must be supported by facts, otherwise, they constitute a violation of the right to inviolability of business reputation (Article 299 of the Civil Code of Ukraine) and slander (Article 125 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

At the same time, there are the following facts: several Ukrainian news outlets began probing into the information about the court case brought by American investors against Maksym Herbut in the US court. The essence of the claims is that Maksym misinformed investors about the status of the project, moved out the investments through personal accounts in Ukraine and used them for things not related to the company or the project, and we are talking about half a million dollars. There are already three such investors, and none of them knew about the existence of others. There can be even more. But I am not a judge, and soon we will hear the decision of an American judge on this case. If accusations will be confirmed, this could be a serious blow to the reputation of Ukrainian startups for American investors.

As a person who is very familiar with Maksym’s project and who has done a lot of intro to other investors, I am responsible for recommending it and now I can’t let this situation remain unanswered. I urge journalists to be guided by facts, to communicate with affected investors and to prevent the dissemination of unconfirmed false details.”

According to Ukrainian investment funds polled by AIN.UA, this is the first such public accusation of a prominent Ukrainian investor in dishonesty. Most likely, this will negatively affect the reputation of Andrey Kolodyuk personally and AVentures Capital in particular. It will also negatively affect the reputation and investment prospects of PassivDom and Maksym Herbut personally if the case against American investors is resolved not in his favor.