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I don't totally understand your take that the PH absolute standard is a disadvantage. Surely this is the whole point? When I go outside and its freezing I have to put on a sweater. I do have criticism of PH but its just that the institute has not managed to promote the standard so that its universally understood and accepted. Especially when its so obviously a no-brainer.

Do you offer passive dome-shaped designs as an alternative to traditional house styles? I’ve read that older homes often utilized simpler yet highly efficient building techniques, such as the dome shape itself. I’m curious if it’s possible to merge those time-tested methods with modern design elements.

I don't think solar panels in a paddock next door should count. A microhydro system in a paddock next door would be a valid adjustment, but if you can't fit the solar panels on the house or at least in the quarter-acre block the house is on, that shouldn't count.

It's not really net zero until it's exporting as much energy back to the grid per annum as its annualised embodied energy. At that point, it's actually paying for itself - its total cost is net zero.

What we need, instead of an energy efficiency per square metre, is an energy efficiency per person. Each bedroom counts as either one or two people depending on the size of the room. Add them up and get a total "full house" occupancy count. Calculate the energy consumption of the house, and divide by the number of people it's designed to hold. That way you're not penalising either small houses or large-family homes, but you may well penalise houses that have two bedrooms and three living rooms. Which you really should.

As a new home owner exploring the efficiency of my older home, this is such a fantastic intro to terminology and concepts critical to that thought process. Thank you so much for putting this together.

Will passive house be mandatory in the near future? The New Green Deal....... just sayin' 😮

Excellent content but please just say no to the term "building science." This is not a new branch of the physical sciences. It's a practical application of knowledge from various fields of science to develop technical methods to solve real world problems. There is already a term for this realm of human endeavor: engineering.

Breathability is a confusing term in the building world. It refers to the ability of a structure to manage water vapour. In the UK if a house was built before 1940, is a single brick build and has suspended floors then it will be a breathable system. Important because if non breathable (non vapour open) materials are used on the walls/floors, then vapour can't flow and will condense causing mould and damage to the brick. Much better to refer to it as vapour open or vapour permeable then confusions like this won't happen

Record heat waves every year , soon 100 degrees will be standard everywhere, there should be programs for super insulation everywhere! Yet……nothing, most want to ignore the problem

And in many 'established' countries (lots of history and old house) the main sort of 'better house' is a conversion or improvement which also limits the potential performance. EnerPHit is the equivalent (slightly lower performance) for conversions.

look up hempcrete. being airtight doesn't mean that the house can't breathe. there are 3 factors - air change so that the air inside is fresh, preventing heat loss getting rid of water vapour Hempcrete is airtight when it is "plastered" with a lime render so it prevents heat loss due to leakages. Hempcrete buffers heat due to its thermal insulation and thermal mass properties. Hempcrete is vapour permeable - this is not a leak - the vapour passes all the way through the wall and out the other side. no vapour sandwich! The only thing hemprete does not do is allow for air exchange. My solution is to open the window.. To which you say "you will lose all your heat", right? Not if your hempcrete wall has buffered heat in it - that heat gets released as the room cools. Which only leaves the filtration question unanswered. what about allergens, pollen, etc? If you are concerned about that then, yes you need an HRV/ERV otherwise, just open the window and let in some fresh air.

I built house nearly 15 years ago (a different era of low energy buildings)with an aim to get as close a passive house as possible, paying some extraa money, but no crazy money. Imhave tripple pane windows, 300 mm aircrete walls with extra 160mm EPS insulation. I have very high heat accumulation due to concrete floor and sealing which keeps nice climate. I measured where I stand based on used energy and it came out as 2.5 times the passive standard with ERV unit temporarily decommissioned (needs rework). I want to build a house extension and certainly in passive standard, with 450mm state-of-the-art aircrete plus insulation, etc. It make sense to go passive these days.

So if I am planning on building a home in Harrisburg, PA with just under 1000 sqft are you saying I shouldn't consider a passive home?

when someone comes into this kind of thing at the start this kind of ball park discussion is invaluable. i have a 1965 double brick house we just bought in Adelaide Australia. I want it to be as efficient as possible within our budget. Passive home ideas and net zero methods are what will inspire us but what we are starting with isn't that efficient but we will try!

It really sucks that all the ways to reduce your expenses are so very expensive. Not being able to afford to live cheaper sucks! The people who need to save money the least are the only ones who can afford to reduce their expenses.

A plaque hanging on a wall is meaningless What you need is a Hydro bill over a five year period. That has zero energy use.

You can always adjust the size of the windows, which will improve the overall performance of the house

The 15 kWh per square metre per year makes sense, but do you get certification before you have proven it over a 10 year. Assuming that you may go above or below in different years

This was an excellent talk. I think you've pretty much said everything that needs to be said, in weighing the Passive House pros and cons. For us, in central British Columbia, Canada, cost was certainly a consideration. We were willing to spend the money on great windows, loads of insulation etc. But the architectural and auditing fees are very, very high. In addition, local sub-trades are old-school and unwilling to learn new skills. That means supervising their every move, all day, every day. Who is going to do that? My wife and I decided to design and build the very best home we could, using the information available from Fine Homebuilding Magazine, the Green Building Advisor, Build It Solar, Home Power Magazine and of course the internet. We designed an 1,100 sq, ft. rancher with double-stud, 12 inch thick walls, triple-glazed vinyl windows, raised-heel trusses, air-tight crawl-space and blown-in cellulose insulation. We used a pier-and-beam foundation instead of a traditional poured concrete foundation. We have large, 3.5 ft roof overhangs to prevent overheating in summer. We have R-36 floors, R-48 walls and an R-68 ceiling. Tremendous effort was made to ensure air-tight construction throughout. We have rainwater catchment off the roof devoted to flushing the toilet. We're fully off-grid, with a solar system in a nearby service building. We have evacuated-tube water heating panels on the roof combined with a coil in the wood cookstove. As we built the home entirely by ourselves there were no labour costs. It came in at Can$55 per square foot NOT including the solar. So there you have it: the best home we could build using very good materials, but not the best that money can buy. We use approximately one-fifth the energy to heat that our neighbours do, and no air-conditioning. Could we have done better? Absolutely. We could have spent far more money and bought much better windows. We could have built sixteen inch thick walls instead of 'only' twelve. But overall, with the information and the funds available, we built a fine home that performs about as well as we had hoped. Somehow word got out about our project and we occasionally get calls from complete strangers who come over for a tour of the place. The local papers have written us up. But the best part of this home is simply living in in. Even at minus 35C we let the fire in the wood cookstove go out before we go to bed, and relight it in the morning. We almost never, ever keep the fire going all day. Our friends keep their fires going around the clock for the entire winter. A dozen years later, we're very pleased with our work. So, as this video says, you can still have an AMAZING home without necessarily going the Passive House route, even though I have great respect for the PH program and ethos.

I feel like the kWh/m^2/yr unit makes alot of sense, since you pay electricity in the EU by the kWh and measure the house footage in m^2, so that number can be directly represented into the maximum cost of climatizing a house (actually I think it's 15 for heating and another 15 for cooling so double that at max) for a given electricity tariff. I calculated for my house (which is small) and it sets the limit at around 150€ on the simplest electricity plan, which is crazy, given that's around what it would cost right now to heat a single room for a month!

Great job of plus and minus. I think at the end of the day, a client builds what they want to build. Some care about costs, some do not. My wife and I are retired. Our costs keep going up, but our pay checks do not. Anything we can build or do to hold our future costs is smart. I am an engineer and do not need some organization for approval of what I want to build. We can only build what we can afford and will not feel bad about that. We are doing ICF walls and SIP roofs, but very excellent dual pane windows as the triple panes are double in price. No return on investment there. We will have ERV, dehumidification, variable refrigerant, and additional fresh air controlled off of pressure diff. (positive interior), Merv 13 filtration. We live in a flood prone and hurricane area. I think we will be quite satisfied with our build and at a price we can afford. I want our home to be able to demonstrate what can built for anyone.

"The same all around the world". Over-simplification. Disagree? Then please explain the differences between Passive House and PHIUS.

Excellent, thorough presentation. Thank you!

Thanks, fantastic overview. I'm an ex sci/math teacher and you actually use some of my techniques. OK, I live in Taos, NM, both heating and cooling needs. And... was gonna build my second passive solar home but couldn't find land with water rights in time so bought a 1000sqft wanna-be PH but need to add a bedroom and make some adjustments (e.g. The ceilings are wayyyy too tall!) In Taos we rely on wood stoves for winter heat (the last design (walls of pumice-crete) uses 1/2 cord of wood for 1800 sq ft home). Wanted to come in at 1/4 cord for the next house. But man, one cloudy winter day's burn is 88 kWh. We're not gonna touch 15 kWh per sq meter per year. And in Taos we use lots of thermal mass (usually adobe) I wish PH could be done without electric motors, but I don't see it, cuz HRV coupled with the airtightness is the core of the PH model. But that still means burning wood. K, thanks for this intro. I learned a lot quickly.

Wicked well done!

I don’t understand. Why pay the extra money to get audited and certified? Just to pat yourself on the back and get a certificate?

Loved your presentation and your passion really came over. good job.

What do you think about building with ICF's

PH is properly for cold countries, it's not for tropical countries as Asia. As all facilities is also designed to meet with thier application such HRV which is designed for high differential temperture.

Great content. Thanks for the presentation. Took me a while to follow along with the firefighter analogy until you got to “chubby house” and it clicked. It’s tricky because the step code appears performance based, but the 2018 reference house is indeed prescribed. Thanks again, hope you’re staying safe in Kelowna. Best wishes from Nanaimo.

I would like to thank you for doing theses videos (I also watched the PHC vs Net Zero). It is really good detailed and simple enough. I wanted to mentioned 1 otem you repeated twice in the presentation "you need triple glazed fiberglass windows with foam... vinyl crap" (24:40). I am a building envelope specialist (currently representing window company). The highest passive house standard is coming from Europe. Europe have almost no fiberglass windows and is based on uPVC and aluminum clad wood windows. Accordingly, mosy of the passive house certified windows are uPVC and aluminum clad wood windows and minority of foam filed fiberglass. I worked with fiberglass manufacturer as well and I am not here to talk down the fiberglass high performance products (although not all of them) but I felt that fair treatment should be given to the certified high performance uPVC and aluminum clad wood windows as well. I will be happy to further discuss this with you but wanted to professionally correct it for the public.

Helpful video, thank you. Do you build in Ohio or know builders that can meet these standards? I hate to be the ginea pig for a new builder to learn from.

Good information. Plasma TV? What year was this filmed?

The right units are the following: space heating demand max. 15 kWh/m2a or heating load max. 10 W/m2

This goodness of God is seen in the Hebrew of v. 1. Yet, too many Believers seem to think that the *English* syntax of the verse is Inspired as well. This thinking is a mistake, and for one very self-evident reason: The English syntax... 'In the beginning, God...' ...suggests an aloof Creator. It also suggests that the main aim of this Creator, concerning the truth of the verse, is to 'lord it over' us. But that is not the spirit of Christ. That is the spirit of a Pharisee. For, a Pharisee is simply anyone who more loves to 'kiss up' to God's supposedly power-centric authority than to love God's self-evident goodness. The Hebrew syntax is verb-then-subject: 'In the beginning created...' Today, those who enjoy how the science-fictional character Yoda speaks will be able to appreciate the Hebrew syntax here. Yoda could be imagined to say, 'Created God the heaven and the Earth in the beginning He did! Mmm!' Here the verb, 'created', is put prior to the subject, 'God'. This is standard Hebrew syntax regarding the relation between verb and subject. If there were a twenty-second silence after each word, most people may begin to appreciate this verb-first syntax: In-the-beginning....................created....................God....................surely....................the-heaven....................and-more-surely....................the-Earth By putting the verb prior to the subject, one is given opportunity to predict and anticipate the subject. And, from there, one is begged to predict and anticipate the object(s). And, likewise from there, one is begged to SEE or SENSE the relationships involved; a 'narrative arc', or 'story arc': 1. First, God created the general, (or 'masculine') cosmos and the special (or 'feminine') Earth (Genesis 1:1). 2. Then God was concerned for how the Earth, as its own general subject, has the most valuable thing about itself in all the cosmos: its abiding maximal abundance of open liquid water (Genesis 1:2). 3. Then God was concerned for how all that water has a special relation to the Sun's light, hence the water cycle (vs. 3-10); 4. Then God was concerned for how that water cycle is to have a special beneficiary and member, namely water-based life as such (vs. 11-12); 5. Then God was concerned for how that water-based life was to have a special category, namely animal life (plant/animal/mineral = animal) (vs. 20-22, 24-25); 6. Then God was concerned for how animal life is to have its own special category, namely human life (vs. 26-28); 7. Finally, God was concerned that the general man is to have the special woman (Genesis 2:21-23). This seven-fold cosmic Divine Design can be seen both in the completed Creation and in Genesis 1-2. So there is nothing of happenstance either in (X) or (Y): (X) there are exactly five things that Genesis 1 reports that God names, (Y) these five things easily seem to be the five basic non-biological factors of Earth's water cycle: Names 1 and 2: binary cyclically distributed thermal regulation ( v. 4-5 ); Name 3: radiologically mediative atmosphere ( vs. 6-8 ); Names 4 and 5: binary thermal surface distribution system ( vs. 9-10 )

Very few would know and I would still question the person who thinks they know what 15 kWh per metre is in person. As you said, its science and verified and you use the PHPP software for exactly that reason, because I don't need to know what it feels like, I just need to know it was calculated and it happened (certified).

Loving the video... but you need a mic that is not so strong. I am heading the marker and it brings chills down my spine. Lol

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. My concern is with rockwool increasing heat in the summer months, as well with the poly iso future breakdown . Have you used gutex or timber hp products Woodfiber products?

Well done

Good content .. thank you!

Seems like the European problem is their energy is hard to get and extremely expensive compared to what we get outside of Europe, especially in America. They get a lot more techy stuff too like heat pump dryers etc... But for sure in the north American continent it makes a lot more sense to make a normal house more efficient and possibly use solar panels instead. Here personally I'll be building a nice house that would actually have decent resale value to input cost and do a small solar array with a wood stove back up and a rain water system. Seems like purpose built up front without the extra utilities could actually pay off.

A very good explanation of the two.

Thank you for the clarity. Your explanation brought it all together for me.

Thanx for sharing...

I will likely listen to all of this series as i sense you are a very good person. I will likely see your content through my Christian and Biblical lenses, mechanical and construction lenses (level up strategies), being a good steward of God's blessings, etc. Thank you!

Very informative. Thankyou. I was just wondering do we need to do any kind of cources or certification as a builder to build a Net zero house in British Columbia ?

Terminology is really complicated and important for these topics, good on you for doing such a thorough presentation! We recently renovated a 70s home to what I'd call "Net-One Month," where we took more of a generation-based approach. I had looked into redoing all the siding with added external insulation, or spray foaming the entire house, even looked into geothermal. In the end, we did pretty much everything that was viable, and maybe a little more. It would have been really fun to try from scratch to include many more of the passive principles. People definitely should if building.

Thanks, this is a great video. I had a question about the money test--would you still employ that if a prospective client just wanted to know what your standard wall assembly was, and why you chose that assembly?

I am designing my house right now. I have looked into passive. One major concern is the amount of capital CO2 in higher step and passive houses. Some of the research I reviewed claims that 60 to 85% of the CO2 emissions comes from the materials used and construction. So even if you produce zero CO2 in the running of the house, it still has a big CO2 footprint. A passive house uses more material and takes more time to construct which increases an already high initial footprint. You can go with mainly wood products like Gutex and Accoya to act as a CO2 sink but similar products are not produced locally. The materials are expensive to start with and have high shipping costs which also reduces the CO2 sink. I think local producers have to start manufacturing products locally to cut shipping and material costs. I am still not sure if passive house is the right way to go but I guess you have to start somewhere. I priced out Gutex, CLT, and Accoya. You are looking at a premium in the order of $400 000CDN for a 2500 sq ft house. So it is currently out of the picture without some major grant.