THIS Is How You Build A Passive House!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2024
- Up to 25% of tradespeople will retire in the next 10 years, a significant proportion of the workforce, which sadly, aren't being replaced by an influx of people coming into the industry; posing a massive risk to delivery of net zero housing targets. Fortunately organisations like BCIT Zero Emissions Building Learning Centre and Mitsubishi Electric are ready with a solution. They are working to offer free training to upskill existing tradespeople with the skills to build passive homes as well as encouraging new people into the space too and in doing so, ensuring that British Columbia's Clean BC targets and housing step-code are kept within reach. In this episode, Imogen met with the team and found out that this is about so much more than solar, heat pumps and insulation and is sparking a whole new set of innovative and creative ways to reach net zero!
Take a look at BCIT ZEBLC's videos here: / @bcitzeblc
An apology from Imogen! At 3:10 I incorrectly gave the numbers for Canada, NOT British Columbia!
00:00 Intro
00:59 Low cost energy efficient options
01:36 Passive house principles
02:13 Step 5
03:04 Opportunities for more job and skill sets
03:59 A physical space to learn
05:07 Step code
05:48 Educate & Spread
06:40 Financial incentives
07:57 Financially attainable?
8:58 Encouraging Evolution
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#cleanenergy #ev #battery #heatpumps #solar #insulation #mitsubishielectric #netzero #zerocarbon #passivehouse #canada #vancouver - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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I retired as a heating engineer 8years ago and could not believe houses were being built with minimal insulation when the cost to properly insulate was a fraction of the cost to retrofit now, all governments be it labour conservative or coalition have neglected to improve the thermal efficiency of our building stock, And the saga continues new constructions be it domestic or commercial built without solar pv when the cost to integrate at build level is minimal. Too many lobby groups from the construction sector protecting there profit margins and not enough action from government to necessitate the change needed.
Exactly. There's yet another development of horrible Barratt boxes being thrown up near me, and none of them have any panels on the roof - which should have become mandatory ten years ago.
Because not everyone has originally all the money to build properly that's the problem! It's becoming harder to even be able to buy let alone build a house for actual generations.
@@alanmay7929 The cost of even passivehouse at build-time is less than 5% if it in the regs. Efficient housing saves the whole country enormous amounts of money over the long term - we are not sending half our money to gas producers, and spending the rest on expensive retrofit that should have been designed out.
And in practice if building regs improve, what actually changes is the cost of plots, not the cost of housing. But housebuilders have been scaring people (and govt) with this crap for decades, at huge cost to us all.
The reasons housing is too expensive in the UK are nothing to do with the quality of it, which is famously low. So there is absolutely no justification for keeping the building regs shitty and forcing everyone into expensive retrofit over the coming decades, even on new builds.
The UK is, and will continue to be, embarrassingly backward. Scientists with hammers? Not on this side of the pond. None of the 12 new houses being built 100ft from my house come with any eco features, and the roofs are not even orientated for retro solar. So sad.
@@jameswilksey lol!!! Who do you think is responsible for that!? It's the city planers and others not scientist at all. Also those super efficient homes are super expensive to build, finally we need to develop or ease the development of new or already existing materials like hemps ...
UK govt need to watch this. Reskilling and retraining the building trades should be happening now, rather than in some distant future dimension. New building regs are slowly being rolled-out, but the investment in forward planning and training is woeful. If we end up with another 5 years of this government in power, we will be stacking up huge costs for the next generation to find.
Sadly, it is not the fault of any particular political party, building regs simply are not a priority for any politician because there are no votes in it (I do think that will change but not rapidly). As a consequence the regs are left to civil service to put together and they never do anything quickly.
But to put this into context for the UK, there are currently c.25 million homes in the UK and we build at best 250,000 new homes a year. Building new homes that meet very stringent passive house style standards, whilst definitely a good idea, is a relatively small part of the solution - it is retrofitting old homes that needs to happen. The Govt. has proposals for the private rented sector to require all hmoes to be at least EPC "c" grade which is a decent start but it is doubtful those will ever get implemented - it is highly questionable economically, the EPC grading is not fit for purpose and there simply are not enough trained people in the construction industry to complete the work in the timescales suggested (IMO it would need at least 10 years)
@@justinstephenson9360 The fact that the building regs are not a priority (because there are no votes in it) is the main problem we have with our politicians. None of them do stuff because it is the right thing to do any longer. There is no leadership. They might try to do some leading on certain issues that are close to their hearts, but for issues that are really big and important, the majority don't seem to have a clue about what the right thing to do is or how to lead the public to realise that changes are necessary and desirable.
@@justinstephenson9360 you're absolutely correct, 10 years sounds about right. That's why massive investment in training should be happening now. We're just not seeing any action on this. Just lots of press releases.
We've been stacking up big costs for the next generation on buildings for 20 years now. It's so depressing, and could so easily have been fixed. Sadly in the UK, the bulk housebuilders captured the system and worked for their own short-sighted goals for many years. There is still very little happening, beyond a promise for somewhat better regs in _another_ 2 years, whilst nothing much happens on the ground except amongst the well-off and/or aware, since that horrible human Osbourne cancelled the 'Zero Carbon buildings' plan 9 years into the 10 year run-up. That was a huge climate crime for which he should have been locked up IMHO. The amount of extra emissions it has caused and will cause is truly scary. That and the related measures at the same time are now costing every UK household £150/yr (i.e £3.5 billion collectively). And still, a decade on, the conservatives just don't seem to get it. I cannot understand what is wrong with them, although I think innumerany in the average politician has a lot to do with it.
How so? Can you elaborate further please?
Who'd like to see this approach in the UK?! If not, what do you think would help speed up the decarbonisation of homes?!
Fat chance of that happening any time soon. Great idea but the UK Government has no money and expects to achieve its net zero targets by some form of magic. Far more likely that the deadline will be pushed back 10 years when the scale of the problem will be twice as bad.
Yes. I'm a big fan of PH design and especially their headline measure of efficiency kWh per m2 per year. The AECB and LETI have both settled on a retrofit standard of
I studied part of a degree in quantity surveying during the pandemic. Most of year one was about passive haus. We already have Europe wide standards. I left before we got onto the active house project which I find more exciting.
These Fully Charged shows Man. Just fantastic.
Middle school shop or even sooner. That’s where education like this should start.
There is so much rhetoric regarding how every generation after the boomers are being shafted. That’s true but that’s not the point. It’s timing.
The newer generations are never cast in their true light…
Pioneers. You “kids” are part of a completely new civilization.
Don’t be intimidated or disheartened. In previous civilizations not everyone was a “pioneer.” Not everyone in the greatest generation fought Hitler. Lots of people from Edison’s generation didn’t invent the light bulb. They worked in a bakery or were hobos. Don’t let people run you down. The future is yours to create.
Our young folks today are faced with a new world. New infrastructure must be built. New technologies in every sector must be created and understood. Every single aspect of life on earth must be reinvented and put in motion.
All you crotchety know it alls who gripe non stop about how great you and the world you know was need to give it a rest.
It’s time to stop running these kids down and start educating them. Instead of complaining pass on the constructive skills you have. Your job now is not to gripe. It’s to back up re-fitting the world.
Too many young people have no idea who they are.
PIONEERS.
If you can, teach them how to be that or get out of the way.
A new government.
I love the idea of a hands-on opportunity for craftspeople. Nobody wants to buy new materials they've never worked with before and put it in a customer's home. The hands-on opportunity gives exposure as much as it gives training. Great idea!!
I can't get enough of Imogen, she's a great presenter!
Agree. Having an engineer who can explain complicated topics in layman's terms is a real skill that she is very good at.
Years ago, the BBC had a science show called Tomorrow's World, an intelligent show where Imogen would have been a perfect presenter for many articles. The BBC dropped it in favour of feeble game shows, soaps, and drag queens.
Imogen is such a flawless and natural presenter! She engages you as the viewer, evidently clearly understands and has researched the subject she’s explaining and is very listenable-to - keep up the great work Imogen! 🤩🙏 Would love to see these kinds of incentives in the UK for upgrading the efficiency of one’s home …
Excellent video! Thank you @ImogenBhogal and Fully Charged Show team for featuring Alex and Ron and the amazing work happening at the BCIT Zero Energy/Emissions Buildings Learning Centre of the BCIT School of Construction and the Environment on the BCIT Burnaby Campus!
This is all super awesome and should be financially stimulated for sure! And it is in many places throughout the world.
However.... I've noticed in a couple different countries now (just western modern countries) that these ideas and incentives only really work for higher middle class and upper class people. And the people who can be convinced and can contribute (a little) themselves too.
A real issue that seems to be growing everywhere in the world is the people who can't afford this despite incentives and despite them potentially being very willing to jump in. How are we going to pull these people along for the passive home/neutral housing?
Another issue is the people who are of the "it works as-is, why change it" mentality.. not even talking about those in the issue above.
Great timing. I was just looking for Passivhaus companies here in the UK, and found Beattie Passive who are based in Norwich. They do a lot of offsite modular construction that can be just craned into site, as well as retrofits to Passivhaus standards
16,000,000 homes need to be retrofitted and 6,000,000 homes built in British Columbia alone by 2030? Uh...there are only 5,071,000 people in British Columbia so that's clearly wrong. Even in Canada as a whole that's clearly too high.
I'm hoping the rest aren't air bnb
I think they added an extra zero or they were talking about the whole of Canada. The retrofits are also not mandated.
A massive amount of houses are empty
@@lindam.1502 There are only about 2 million homes in BC and many of those are condos. The presented numbers are wrong. There are actual few empty homes in BC. Look up the vacancy home tax stats. 7% are unoccupied. This is much better than most municipalities.
Nah. Every one in BC is so rich, they own 3.1 homes each!
What an incredible concept. When we started our Passive House build, there were only 19 of these style buildings in the entire country. Amazing to think a whole nation is getting on board!
hey , I was so pleased to see this new video , it is the future .
I have just built a passiv haus in Greece and living in it is a revelation .
the three main things to achieve this wonderful enviroment are insulation , insulation and insulation !
Good shout Imogen
Great video showing that yes, it can be done. Keep up the good work and thanks for showcasing Canada.
I feel like a missed point is architectural choices for solar heating by carefully planning the alignment of roof overhangs, window size and position, and the orientation of the window to where the sun shines from, to allow the building to gain free heat from direct sunlight, but only when it's not air conditioning season.
Because it's insulated, is it not? That's the point. Passive houses aren't new where I'm from - you lower the blinds and it's fine. If it cools during the night, you don't need AC, even in the hottest weather. And if it is hot out, there's probably sun and you can use that to power the AC for free.
Look up Makar. A company in the Highlands who have been doing this for decades. Tornagrain zero C is another example of a new town of totally efficient homes. It can be done.
Keep up the great work FCL Team. 👍
Great video - inspirational
Hi Imogen. Love your work 👍
In climates with hot temperatures during the day it's not enough to have insulated surfaces: they must have enough heat capacity and be shadowed on the south side in summer... in order to prevent wasting energy with a HVAC...
9:33 Scientists with a Hammer! Excellent! Now how about financial partners without blinders… I own a net zero home in the NY Fingerlakes region (Lake Tunnel Solar Village in Geneva, New York). The builder used “off the shelf “technology - SIPS, heat pumps, mid level solar panels. The goal was to build them indoors and train young people in the process. It was a visionary and idealistic plan that was perhaps too ambitious.. but it was the lack of understanding by the financial partners and to some degree by the municipal players that slowly unwound the momentum. NYS agencies offered grants etc. but these projects required matching funds. The Solar Home Factory and property is listed for sale last time I checked.
Brilliant episode - if only we had similar targets like this in the UK, but there is zero chance of that with our current administration , who just seem to want to delay & water down any existing targets/regulations to suit their house builder mates that support them.They can't even mandate solar panels on all/most houses , which seems a no-brainer. Reducing the amount we all need to spend on heating and also cooling which is becoming more of a thing nowadays due to the changing climate , will benefit us all for years & years to come. Using the resources we have available more wisely, rather than just use it because its cheap.
"zero chance of that with our current administration , who just seem to want to delay & water down any existing targets/regulations to suit their house builder mates that support them" - this is the bit I don't understand, at all. Surely if they mandated that new houses must meet passive house specs by 2030, **and provided incentives to do so**, their housebuilder sponsors/mates would be quite happy? Same if they mandated that all old housing stock must be upgraded to similar standards (or demolished, if impossible and not a listed building) by 2050 - again, with sensible incentives to the owners of such housing stock... then their housebuilding mates would be rolling in well-paid work for years to come... Plus we'd all vote Tory to get our interest-free loans for upgrades...
The good news is that precisely because they have let our UK regulations fall so far behind in performance, the next administration may simply have to embrace a UK branded form of Passivhaus. Many UK registered architects have been qualifying in the standard for years anyhow as clients are increasingly aware of the Passivhaus standard.
My home was built 2 years ago, it has good insulation to the point that it's too hot most of the time, we barely need to use the radiator but I find us using the portable AC in summer quite a bit to try and cool it down.
It sounds like your house is subject to too much ‘solar gain’. The Passivhaus model prevents homes being built with this as it carefully balances energy in vs energy out. The UK national regs are poor at achieving this, so Passivhaus is better in this respect. External shading, such as simple mobile shutters, would prevent you needing to resort to AC. Thanks to climate change countries such as the UK that have no tradition of shutters will need to embrace such simple methods of reducing the risk of over heating.
Thank you.
My employer does. I began designing off grid buildings over a decade ago. We hope to release kits in the next 4-5 years or so. Much technology to mass produce to keep the cost down, else such passivehaus designs will be a luxury of wealthy tree huggers. :)
Did you watch the video? The focus on 'PassiveHaus' is *passive* improvements - insulation, design, materials... yes, heatpumps and heat-recovery systems are important, but they were the last 2 pieces, after you have the passive structure in place. Correct (and sufficient) insulation, preventing air leaks, and so on can have a far bigger impact on the energy efficiency of a home than just slapping in a heat-pump...
Really interesting!
Thank you
One thing I don't hear enough about is ground sourced heat pumps for new build condos in cities. They already have to dig very deep for the structural foundation and parking garage. Why not go the extra step for the heat pump? I know it's not unheard of, but I really think it should be the standard by now.
2:34 I think he means 'up to 90% reduction in heating load', not actually '90% reduction in energy needed to run the house'. The hot water+appliances and gadgets load stays the same and so becomes the majority of the consumption rather than only 20%-ish. 90% reduction in heating load due to passivehouse-grade retrofit is normal (for an old house). 90% reduction in total energy use is not.
Good point!
There are heatpump dryers and water heaters now too. Induction stovetops. True convection ovens....lighting is already down 90%. Increased use of electronics is the counter point.
@@r.j.sharkey It's true that you can make big reductions in appliance loads. Lighting is the biggest incadescent->LED is 90% reduction CFL->LED is 60% reduction. And modern fridges and freezers from 12 yr old ones is 70% reduction. Gas-> Induction stove maybe 50%. But TV, kettle, computers, routers, toaster, microwave, coffee machine, heating pumps and 57 other gadgets don't change much. Heatpumping the DHW and dryer will be a factor of 3 (75% reduction). You won't get a 90% reduction overall. But I agree if you do all those things as well as fix the house fabric then (because heating dominates) then what he said _could_ be correct.
From the context, talking about Step 5, I assume he was referring only to those items covered by the Step Code: space heating and cooling, water heating, ventilation and related fans and pumps. It is also not clear what baseline house he is using to arrive at the 90% reduction. If the baseline is the average existing single family house in BC, then maybe a 90% reduction is possible. If the baseline is a new house built to the prescriptive requirements of the 2018 BC building code, then the reduction might be around 50 to 60%.
Either and probably that (in the context of the German definition I'm used to), or it's conflated with electricity generation via solar?
I'd love to see how you turn a current house a more efficient home.
This is great for single family detached homes, but what about semi-detatched, multiplexes, townhouses, apartment buildings and condominiums? These need to be net zero too, right? There is a big push to get away from the "yellow zoning" which is for single family detached homes only due to housing affordability issues and an understanding that commuting 1.5 hours each way to work because you can only live in the suburbs is a quality of life issue.
Don't see why it would change for semi-detached or terraced homes, etc? If i were to sum up PassiveHaus simplistically, it would be 'build it properly in the first place' :p (build homes to minimise the amount of energy they need to use - for heating or cooling)
Me too!! I helped build one then decided to build my own. Really not that hard but not many people want to spend money up front to save later.
It's a false economy. It's much easier to build in quality from the outset rather than try to remediate it afterwards. Any house I build will have gutters that have much more capacity than the UK buidling regs. require because we are getting much heavier storms than we used to. But are the volume house builders looking at how the designs of their houses need to change? E.g. by including air conditioning and the electrical systems to allow this to operate on a net-zero basis for the length of heatwaves we are now getting?
3:00 "25% of people … set to retire in the next 10 years"
↑ So… people retire after 40-year careers? Gosh!
Sarky comments aside, BC's approach is so inspirational. Everyone should be doing this.
I think the point was less about the 25% retiring, and more that there *isn't* a corresponding influx of replacements (as there would be, traditionally).
@@logicalChimp Fair point, well made
Thank you for this. My house is waay too aggressive.
Well that makes me proud to live in BC. Great to see government and industry coming together on all levels to make housing that is not only more efficient but better to live in.
I do. I was part of a team to produce a certified prefabricated system.
mandate better new build standards asap.
For older homes, provide more grants for zero emmision tech improvement(low hanging fruit). Particularly professional draft surveys and draft proofing together with insulation.
We have this in the uk to the issue is they focus on new builds and the old builds get left the way they are, we habe council housing and all the old builds get left and not updated in 2021 the home I moved into had 70mm of insulation, the reccomeded was 150 back then now it’s 300 and I’ve only just got 150! We have no solar panels no heat pumps and poor insulation( they use a lot lot more gas and electric to keep them going, but they focus on the new builds
It's way easier to legislate for new build requirements, than it is to find the money to upgrade old stuff. My 1930s semi is a bastard to heat (or cool) and leaks heat like a sieve - realistically, it'll cost tens of thousands to bring up to modern spec; money I don't have handy...
Implementing it into new builds first is good for a couple of reasons:
- far cheaper to build it in from the beginning than it is to retrofit afterwards... update the building code, and you at least stop the pool of buildings needing retrofit from getting bigger
- ramps up demand in a controlled way... which leads to more training tradesfolk and increased supply of materials and equipment (helping to lower costs for subsequent retrofits)
Passive House concept is from Germany, where it's massively needed, but apparently other countries have taken over by mandating implementation. I have lived in 10 units in 4 different cities in Germany and non had a very basic HVAC system, only outer walls are very thick for winter.
why is mineral wool the main insulation material used as sarking in these shots? You'd think that in a country like Canada, that has such a extensive wood industry, there'd be more wood fiber and cellulose available than they'd know what to do with. Wood fiber insulation and other plant-sourced insulation materials have perfectly adequate insulating properties (and in some metrics, beyond simple thermal insulation coefficient, even outpace synthetic ones), and it has a significantly lower carbon footprint than any synthetic insulation, be it glass fiber, mineral wool or foam panels.
Fireproofing, I’d guess. Or cost. Or both.
@@davestagner It's mostly a cost issue. Wood fibre insulation is usually treated to make it less combustible, but ultimately it can always be made to burn, so you might need to use thicker sheathing to allow the necessary time for the occupants to escape. So you can design a structure that has the same performance regardless of what sort of insulation you build, but it might cost more. Wood fibre should be an ideal insulator for Canada given their lumber and land resource. Wood fibre is not as good and insulator as mineral wool, you need more of it; which in turn can make the walls thicker, so each house requires more land if it is to provide the samel internal space. But Canada has lots of space so having walls that are 200% thicker doesn't really matter.
@@tlangdon12 The insulation value difference between woodfibre and rockwool is small. typically 0.40 vs 0.43 so it really doesn't make any difference to the wall thickness, especially because woodfibre can double as a structural or racking element whilst rockwool can't do that. Rockwool is cheap and doesn't burn though, so you are probably right about why it's used. Also I'm not aware of any Canadian woodfibre producers, and it is heavy so you don't want to be transporting it halfway round the world - that spoils the embodied carbon numbers.
It’s nice to hear about “all those” rebates and interest free loans in our sister province BC. Those rebates are not FREE, they are ALL tax dollars all coming from the same source. An example of how much Canadians are paying in taxation. Also, does this address the real issue about homelessness in Canada, specifically BC. Visitors to your event will see them travelling within the Vancouver area.
Make it affordable, not through rebates (the polite word for funding from taxation).
Affordability comes with scale, and scale is achieved with rebates. This is a typical chicken and egg problem and rebates are needed to kick start the scaling process. In the real world, change is achieved through gradual process and not over night decrees.
Rebates provide the incentive to start the transition... just like the Electric Car rebates that many countries offered at the start, and which most countries have now stopped (except the US, because they're so far behind on the transition :p). Unfortunately, Housing is far more expensive than electric vehicles, so require bigger incentive for longer - but the net effect will be the same: once the transition is rolling, the incentives will be pared back.
Correct. Rebates are not free, but are a social cost paid by societies for the greater good. Conversely pollution is a negative cost that societies pay for in greater healthcare costs. Nothing is free - not rebates and not pollution. Someone, somewhere is paying.
What is the lens you see this through? The needed solution regardless of cost or taxation, short term pain for the long term value. Or the view that green technologies, while are valuable are also massive revenue generators for the government to tax more from all levels which the homeless could not afford these benefits regardless.
No lens is necessary just reality. There is always short term pain to repair something that is broken. Fix the leak today or pay more later. The cost of that repair creates economic activity and jobs which generates taxes. It is not a zero sum game. It's a boost to the economy by reducing emissions /pollution and generates wealth through economic activity. It is the same infrastructure dividend of building infrastructure such as roads. Lenses are only necessary to distort reality.
Maybe also build houses with proper thermal mass that can even out the swings in temperatures so no AC needed if it is hot for a couple of days and no heating needed if it is cold for a couple of days. I only saw the American toothpick and plywood style construction in the imagery but maybe that was just some stock footage and not examples from BC?
im normally not into the green movement at all, and i get annoyed by how much it is sold on everything. that being said, i totally agree with this passive house thing. increasing standards so that we use far less energy makes financial sense. when i have a house built, i will totally spend some money up front so save a ton of energy every month and have a more comfortable house
Edit: just got the part where they say how much money is available, which looks like 13,000 in grants/rebates and 40,000 in an interest free loan. That sounds like about C$50,000 total, but my gut tells me that that’s at most half of the overall cost. and Canadian dollars don’t buy as much as US dollars, so it might be more like a third? One imagines that they’ve done the math on these things, but in the US, electric vehicle incentives, I’m out to about a quarter of the cost of the vehicle, so it could be that scale. The differences, you don’t have to buy a car.
The piece doesn’t do a good job of explaining what the actual program is supposed to do. In other words, does this mean that you can’t sell a home no matter how long it’s been there unless it’s at this step five level? In which case, who is paying for the conversion? I’m assuming it’s the homeowners. so if I extrapolate, this is gonna mean a few things.
First, depending on how old the housing stock is, you’re going to have a lot of people who are going to decide not to move unless they have to. If selling your house means having to retrofit, And the retrofit is even only $20,000, which I’ve got to imagine it’s more like $100,000 to completely redo all of the internals and all the insulation, and probably the roof perhaps? There’s no way that’s less than $100,000, because you’re essentially building a new external house around your current house. so there’s gonna be plenty of people who will decide not to sell when they would have. There will be others who will have to sell, because of circumstance, and those people will have to fold in this cost, which means that those houses are going to be more expensive than they would have been. I don’t know if that means that they will be comparable to brand new construction or not. But my guess is that new construction will be relatively less expensive than a retrofit of this kind. For the same space and rooms, etc. So that means that new housing will either go up in price because it can, or it will be sold first, leaving those who have to sell Stuck with homes longer than they would have.
On the other hand, if this is a requirement for your home, whether or not, you’re selling it or not, then there’s got to be some way that these costs are being deferred. I’m assuming that in this part of Canada, they are all sorts of people. Some of them will not be able to afford to do this.
The minimum way to do this is to create zero interest or extremely low interest loans, so at least the work can be done. After all, if we’re being serious about this, What matters is making the changes. In essence, we can figure about the money later, if you’re serious. Better would be grants that would actually pay for this work, since most of the work that is required to retrofit a house it’s not working already be doing.
I’ve got to believe that someone in the British Columbia government has thought this through. But we didn’t really get enough of an explanation, at least halfway through the video, to understand how this is actually going to function for real people. Which is a bummer, because if this is a great program, it would be good to understand it. And if it’s not such a good program, at least, from a practical perspective, I would want to know how homeowners and voters feel. In other words, did people vote for this program? If so, how and why?
Bear in mind that building a PassiveHaus from the start is *far* cheaper than retrofitting... yes, fitting good insulation may be more expensive than the cheap stuff - but it's *far* cheaper than fitting the cheap stuff, then paying someone else to rip all the cheap stuff out and replace it with the good stuff :p
Aside from that, a large chunk of PassiveHaus is being air-tight / preventing the air-leaks (which carry warm air out with them), and avoiding 'thermal bridges' etc - and again, this is far easier to achieve when you're building the structure (albeit takes a bit more time and attention, and a willingness to not cut corners - litterally) then to try and trace down / fix individually once the building is complete.
Ecktually, since US building materials come from British Columbia, the Canadian dollars buy much more in British Columbia. Cedar shakes on California houses ALL came from British Columbia (not anymore since it turns out that wooden roofs really burn efficiently in a Hollywood holocaust).
I get that we do have to do something but BC already gets 98% of its electricity from hydro powered. It would have a low footprint if we switch to electric heat. That seems to be more important than passive housing. The carbon footprint for building passive is quite high. You would think a compromise to improved efficiency with heat pumps would be a better choice for reducing CO2 overall. It would also help to keep the cost of housing lower.
I would rather spend the money converting old houses to heat pumps than all new houses to passive.
Switching out a gas furnace for a heat pump certainly cuts CO2 emissions immediately, but also increases electricity consumption. Improving the building envelopes (of both old and new houses with heat pumps) reduces electricity consumption, leaving more available for electric car charging or to export to other geographic areas that don't have their own local sources of clean electricity, both of which will also reduce CO2 "overall".
@@bartholomewcubbins9723 It is a bit of an assumption that the passive house reduces CO2 overall. You are potentially increasing your CO2 footprint with excessive insulation. Vancouver doesn't get very cold. 98% of BC electricity is green so over the life of a house, the total CO2 footprint is not necessarily better with a passive house.
I looked into a passive house but many of the products had to be shipped long distances and were expensive. Wood sourced insulation is a good idea because it tends to capture CO2 but there are no good wood insulation products in the local market. The point being, I don't think it is obvious what the right thing to do is and you have to be careful.
@@yodaiam1000 Because Vancouver doesn't get very cold, it doesn't take that much extra insulation to reach Energy Code Step 5. If you only look at CO2 emissions from one house, then I agree that reducing the use of green electricity won't accomplish much. But if you look at the overall picture, considering how that saved electricity could be used to reduce CO2 emissions elsewhere, then there will be a significant benefit.
Were you looking at building to the Passivhaus standard? There are manufacturers of triple-glazed windows in Canada, but they may not be certified by Passivhaus. To reach Step 5 in Vancouver, you wouldn't even need triple glazing. As long as you don't have too many windows, quality double-glazed windows with low-E coatings will be enough.
@@bartholomewcubbins9723 The main issue is sourcing the required amount of insulation. You need about a 12" of wall insulation in Vancouver to meet the passive house standard. There are also air/moisture barrier requirements. Many of these products are not locally sourced. It is fairly significant even for Vancouver. Wood insulation is better for capture but there is nothing local. Shipping is very expensive and adds CO2. You are looking at $60000CND just for the additional shipping for the wood based insulation on a typical house.
I am not saying it isn't necessarily worthwhile, I am just saying you can't assume the life cycle CO2 footprint is better with a passive house due to the extra capital in CO2.
I would also say the floor space ratio and building area restrictions in Vancouver and the lower mainland are punitive for passive houses. You are spending all this money to do the right thing and you get an effective smaller floor space. The newer codes also require more shallow sloped stairs. This is amplified in Vancouver since they increase minimum hallway widths. It eats away proportionally more space from the rooms. If the province is proceeding with this, the zoning laws have to change so people aren't penalized for building better homes.
The challenge of skills shortages is a big one. Unfortunately the construction industry is a very conservative industry and very slow to change its methods. In Korea for instance, I’ve been in shipyards where ships are made out of “Lego brick” modules. These modules come as a complete structural unit complete with pipework and railings, which come seemingly straight off an autocad drawing via a cnc machine. Yes, they still hire tens of thousands of people, welding is not at all an obsolete skill by any means!
Does land based construction use factory built modules to make buildings? I’ve not seen widespread examples. But once upon a time ships used to be built in a manor that was closer to how houses are built today (and for the last few hundred years) - one piece at a time.
How ships are built today should be how houses are built tomorrow. Factory built, lots of automation, yielding consistent quality and (hopefully) lower costs.
I was learning about low energy, long life, lose fit buildings 45 years ago training to be an architect. I've been trying to design low-carbon buildings ever since but only very rarely asked. That is the main issue in the UK, nobody is interested unless forced :-( I was designing using SIPs over 30 years ago, before they were called SIPs :-) Building passive homes is a problem, designing them isn't. My BIM software can even thermally model my designs and check them against the PassivHaus standard. But never been asked to design to that standard yet! Why is that?
Is it time to allow full "off grid" housing in rural areas?? These would be zero carbon and zero public infrastructure. The cheaper land values ought to allow these houses still to be very affordable and could take the pressure off and show the way for urban areas??
How often does a client ask you the lifetime energy cost of their design?
Do they ever ask about ventilation systems?
Scotland is looking at changing its EPC process, which would make the current "C" grade houses illegal for rent or sale - like BC.
You may find clients asking about it real soon...
@@simonpannett8810 Off-grid houses are already allowed if you can get planning permission for them, connection to the grid is not a prerequisite to getting planning permission, many other things are though :-)
@@davidcassidy2944 I do hope so, full lifetime costings haven't been important to anyone except city based large businesses for a long time. Even the NHS wasn't concerned which is why so many of the PFI buildings designed for a 25 year life are falling apart now. The NHS didn't, apparently, ask them to last last any longer than the repayments under the PFI 'rules'. That's my understanding of the current issues with Part L only, short life, tight fit buildings of today :-(
Because carbon emissions are an unpriced externality.
Price it properly and the market will suddenly ask you to build lower carbon buildings.
The first question we need to ask ourselves is how do I use energy?
It’s expensive! On my bank account, on the planet, and even geopolitically!
Another good question is to ask, how energy secure am I?
Why would you pour water into a bucket with holes in it?
How do I stop the energy leaking away?
This needs to be considered before, during and after all construction change. It underpins much of what we could do.
Where do I get my energy from?
Can I use that thermonuclear device that passes across the sky every day? (The Sun!)
How do we finance it?
Do I personally finance it either in part or fully, or does the gov part finance it?
It’s both! Please don’t hide behind “It’s the Governments fault!” That’s an excuse to do nothing.
We all need to take some responsibility and a stepped approach is good and a goal based approach is ideal.
We can all get grants for insulation - Fully Gov financed.
Grants for Heat pumps - Part financed (£5K)
Solar and Home Battery? (Currently 20% VAT Free)
So we need a passive home, not passive people!
My views are UK based.
I want this industry in Malaysia! but for homes that keep cool, not hot 😅
The subsidies are so confusing in Canada. Interest free loan from government & several cash subsidies from 3 levels of government plus utility company. On top of that it seems citizens have to hire a energy consultant to make a plan & certified the work before you get paid. It’s kind of exhausting to understand & to make this “free” money work for Canadians.
In the UK passivhaus is being sold as an aspirational purchase for hipsters and wealthy people at the moment. Lots of lovely profit for the design & build teams. They won't be keen to see that come to an end. It needs to become ubiquitous to make it cheap enough for everyone which will require incentive and I'm not sure who will pay for that in this economy. Maybe with a change of government? Use it to buy us off, borrow yet more to fund it or raise taxes? There is a lot of hard political decisions to be taken in the near future and that doesn't fill me with confidence in a cost of living crisis. Most tradesmen are not scientists with hammers by the way. Most should literally not be using a hammer at all. I was on site a passivhaus project this week for a visit from the energy minister and I couldn't even get the "scientists" to wear hardhats and high viz. Maybe they couldn't get them on over their lab coats?
Rammed Earth, Earthship homes, Hempcrete, Aircrete/Precast homes.
Maybe we can have nice things afterall!
It's amazing how bad we were at insulating buildings in the past. My local school was built in the mid-1970s and is an absolute travesty of design. It's largely on one level, so has a massive footprint and a lot of roof space for heat to dissipate. Which it would, because it was built with *literally no insulation at all.* The roof panels you see when you look up _is_ the roof.
Oh, and they put a lot of the radiators on the ceiling. Because nobody explained convection to them. But hey, at least it has very small (single glazed) windows, which was their attempt at keeping the heat in.
One of my friends designs HVAC systems for schools in the UK. He hates his job. The schools are built with a 30-40 year life expectancy, on the basis that "needs will have changed by then, so why over-engineer the construction" - the mortgages the local authorities take out to pay for them are about 25 years long. It's not hard to work out the results...I look at the Victorian engineering still being used today and can't help thinking that Londoners would be knee deep in shit if Bazalgette hadn't over-engineered the London sewer system...
Excellent. BC is really killing it with getting housing to a passive level. Going to look if Ontario is doing similar things.
No passive for Ontario, it's planning on building 1.5 million houses in the next few years, importing people to buy them, with no infrastructure plans, just profits for developers. Not counting people are being brought from warn countries that take few resources to live to a high resource to live in country.
BC has the most homeless people and the most outrageous housing costs. More of these costs will cause people to freeze to death. We need a major increase in affordable supply. Our electricity to heat the house is 100% sustainable hydroelectric as well.
My revivifer plans to build a really aggressive house!
First of all BC Hydro is own by the BC Gov its 100% Monopoly . (There is no such thing as a free market in BC)
What about Fortis?
I prefer government ownership to the free-market energy companies in Alberta. My utility bills more than doubled after Ralph Klein de-regulated and privatized the market.
You’re speaking to a lot of people from the UK here. Mind telling them that our monopoly charges 14.05 cents/kWh for electricity, and Hydro cannot unilaterally put these prices up too? And in fact, there are a number of electricity producers in some parts of the province, but BC Hydro is the predominant one. I think if you were aware of what our friends in the UK have to pay for power, you might be a little more appreciative of what we have.
In Alberta my electricity costs are 6.59 cents per KWh. That may seem cheap, but deregulation and privatization introduced administration charges, distribution charges, transmission charges, balancing pool allocation charges, rate riders and local access fees. These amount to literally two thirds of by electricity bill.
@@davidcottrell570 And the 14 cent/kWh is the higher rate that only kicks in after exceeding 1,350 kWh in a 2-month billing cycle. That first 1,350 kWh is charged at only about 9.6 cents/kWh.
Just one question..
Where do all the trees come from?
That's kinda irrelevant (to this topic) given the houses will be built regardless - the question is *how* they're built.
At least trees are (somewhat) self-sustaining, especially if replacement seedlings are planted in each field after harvesting the existing trees (yes, the trees are grown on the equivalent of 'farms' - they're not chopping down firgin forests, etc.... mostly)
@@logicalChimp oke. so how many forests do we need to cut down for it? How long does it take to grow back. Still think its irrelevant? If we keep going as we are now we should cherish every tree out there. And not cut it down. And we would need to plant a lot of trees on top of that.. trees that cant be cut down either.. And did you hear the numbers 6,000,000 homes in British Colombia alone. And the wood that goes in one house is a lot more then 10 trees.
@@logicalChimp Point is there are not even enough treefarms in the world to provide wood for 6.000,000 homes for BC. let alone the whole world. And if we start growing them right now it will still take up to 40 years before we can cut them down. And thanks to that that "mostly"part will become less and less likely as there is already a thriving illegal trafficking of wrong wood. And thanks to climate change seedlings survival rate has been going down significantly in the last few years as well.
Uk new houses were scheduled to be zero carbon from 2016. Somebody should look into who persuaded Cameron and Osborne to cancel it.
Part L1B 2021 Regs shows us how the UK is far behind and that's just for extensions, alterations and conversions ..... sad times.
Better insulation in ALL buildings is a MUCH greater priority than installing heat pumps and other short term 'solutions'. Until governments accept this then we're stuck with frankly insane subsidy schemes to swap one device with a 10 year lifespan for another with a similarly short useful life. Insulation will last for decades at a minimum!
It's baffling everyone understands you wear more clothes in winter but don't consider it would be a good idea for houses to have the same approach taken.
I used to think this, but I have been persuaded to change my mind. Swapping gas to heat pump is a much quicker and simpler job than whole-whole fabric retrofit. And with decarbonisation speed matters just as much as the endpoint, so actually there is a good argument for decarbonising by just getting rid of all the gas boilers rather than insisting on fabric-first which is technically much better, but dramatically slower (and more expensive). There is a brilliant piece looking at this issue by Dr Richard Erskine. 'Insulate Britain, Yes, but by how much?' It's a really thought-provoking read, especially for those of us solidly in the 'fabric-first' camp.
Precisely _because_ we have dithered for so long (i.e not changed the building regs 20 years ago for a gentle transition) and time is short, just whacking in a load of HPs decarbonises faster. The fabric can still be done later.
heat pumps wors beat in a well insulated house. horse and cart.
@@xxwookey
It's not the have b if the government lol!!! Yes they can make it better but they aren't going to tell you how to build or get ve you money for that! There is need of many little changes. The use of hemp for example
@@xxwookeyeven heat pumps isn't as simple because of costs and also the still waste of energy due to lack of insulation! The heat pump won't be as effective as gas for example in real hard situations.
@@alanmay7929 You can heat any building with a heat pump that you can heat with a boiler. But obviously heating badly-insulated and draughty buildings wastes a lot of energy however you do it, and it's a lot cheaper if you only need a small heat pump not a massive one. Nevertheless wasting very-low carbon energy is, from a climate point of view, way better than wasting high-carbon energy.
When considering decarbonisation the bottom line is that we have to cut _emissions_ to a given level, not energy use per se. And if the quickest and most affordable way to do that turns out to be loads of heat pumps and a pile of extra generation, then that's still a valid solution even though many of us would prefer to see all the houses retrofitted to at least LETI/AECB standard, if not PH.
A high earning tradesperson today can expect to make about $80,000 canadian dollars, which is the median pay that a skilled tradesperson from 1965 could have earned.
Both of those are below the estimated $105,000 USD which is estimated to maximize happiness for an individual.
The reason that a working person can never achieve their personal goals which would make them happy is because people who own large amounts of Capital have more bargaining power than do people who do the actual work.
This is why going in to trades is not actually very appealing. Yes there is steady income, but also knowing how much money is being made by people above you in the company who work a tenth as hard as you do feels like… what’s that word?
This actively subverts the goal of achieving sustainability. People who are being exploited are less able to freely choose the more sustainable way of doing things.
The whole world should take an example from BC and do the same or better!
Lol!!!! As if the world hasn't been doing that already!? Thats literally what's happening all around the world! At least in developed countries.
Hmm ... part of the problem of finding enough young people to follow on, so to speak, is that the holy grail for young adults is to get a degree in "something".
Working in a "trade" is considered beneath them.
Unless the salaries are increased by quite some amount then perhaps attracting school leavers into apprenticeships will remain a problem.
One way to channel young people into trade type jobs is to rsise the bar for entry requirements to university.
However, as has be mentioned in other places univerities are seen to be uett another industry catering to the needs of universities.
Its going to take some time to convince young adults that gaining a degree is not a guarantee of a successful career in any way.
Managing a young adult's expectations used to be very much better accomplished when UK streamed children into secondary moderns, technical colleges and grammar schools.
Today we see the comprehensive school system as meeting the needs of both pupil and employers alike.
Gifted children who wish to attend grammar schools are regarded with suspicion.
It is distressing that so many of these buildings are made from flammable materials given the awful forest fires Canada are currently suffering. Now is the time for alternative materials more resilient to fires.
Given the nature of the forest fires, even if the houses were entirely built of brick, they'd still burn if one of the fires swept over them.... if nothing else, the windows, doors, and roof would provide ingress to the fire...
Firefighting 101: Every. Thing. Burns.
Problem is not to build a passiv house. The money is the most important point. They are very expensive in construction! 👍👍🇩🇪🤔🤔
so... Insulate Britain were onto something then??
Architects! And passivehaus designers. We have loads of highly trained highly skilled architects and tradespeople in the UK. It’s the public that needs educating about where to find the right people.
I'd disagree that it is the general public that need educating about where to find the skilled designers. They don't use these designers. What we need the general public to understand is that efficient houses are available AND it it is worth paying a premium for them. We also need people to refuse to pay the inflated prices for the old, inefficient houses that abound in the UK.
@@tlangdon12 Yup - that, and for the gov. to get off their arses and actually mandate some modern standards for new builds...
personally, I'd like to see something like the BC step code (rather than the typical box-ticking approach the UK gov likes), plus requirements about solar, storage, and installing wiring (note: just the wiring) for en EV charger (far cheaper to run the wiring when the house is built, rather than after... ditto solar & storage).
There’s nothing, so far as I have seen, on home wind power. Any comments? Fancy doing a video on this?
When are the Alberta tar sands going to stop production and Canada really embrace renewables including lots of wind turbines, solar and storage???
When they are made to, or there is no high-price oil market left. The reduction in demand from EVs is already affecting total oil demand (6% reduction by 2025 is projected by WEF) whilst aviation, petrochemicals and shipping don't change much. So there are large uncertainties in exactly how fast this is going to go and when peak demand is (anytime from 2024 to 2035 on current plans). And supply may still fall faster than demand in which case prices remains high and the tar sands still make economic sense. Oil prices have always been volatile and that's not going to change with the transition.
Tar sands oil production has a high cost of production and refinement. As the prices drop from lower demand, OPEC will attempt to mitigate falling per barrel prices through production control. However, economics is what will dictate any changes of economic activity. Note that refined oil products are still required for fertilizers to grow food and materials. Oil production will not be going away anytime soon. Welcome to real world.
@@Obscurai Fertiliser is made from ammonia and ammonia is made from methane, not oil, these days. Yes oil is used for various other bits of carbon-based chemistry so won't be going away entirely. That's currently about 14% of production. But various other carbon-based feedstocks can be used. Oil is partly available as a cheap feedstock _because_ we dig loads up for use as fuels. If much of that usage goes away it will be interesting to see if it remains the best/cheapest feedstock or if other (generally bio) materials fill some of that gap. Oil used for plastics that don't get burned is not a greenhouse gas and thus not a (climate) problem (plastic pollution is of course it's own big, separate problem).
@@xxwookey Thanks for the clarification.
Yes, it will be interesting if food prices will fall or increase as a result of oil demand decreases. I expect that it will rise in the short term as methane is also used in electricity peaker plants and more of these will be required for the transition.
Regardless, the only thing that will stop oil sands production is if it becomes economically unviable (high production costs relative to selling price, or no market access due to its isolation).
@@Obscurai Do you mean 'food prices' above or is that a typo/braino?
i used to read all them back issues of mother earth news and other weirdo freaky hippy stuff, there was a LOT of passive and carbon neutral stuff all the way back in the 70's, i remember enough that i could do a passive house now, but, some of the ideas are weird and confusing. my fave is building a house... in a greenhouse, with a passive airflow thermal mass heating system in the basement.
The EU mandated nzeb for all new buildings built from 2030
Indeed we really need this in the UK, so we don’t keep building this shitty not future proof houses by builders that try to build as cheap as posible, in the same way that they have in the last 3 decades (just with a bit more insulation). 😡😡
U.K. "Jumper" = U.S. "Sweater"
You say “16,000,000 homes need refitting [in B.C.]” Really? StatsCan says B.C. had 1.9M homes in 2016. And Canada as a whole has only has ~39,000,000 people.
Europe is a long way in front of Canada in building technology. Airtight building technology was developed in Europe and is cheaper and better than Passivhaus.
I don't know who came up with the idea of building air tight, but Canada also has a long history of research and experimentation with energy efficiency. The Saskatchewan Conservation House, built in 1977, was designed to be very air tight and was one of the first houses ever to have a heat recovery ventilator.
@@bartholomewcubbins9723 In 1973 a number of houses were built using SIPs. They had problems with damp which was solved by inserting an ultra insulator as a gasket in the bottom and top rails. The houses used a passive hrvs system in 1979.
There are 16 million homes in a place with 5.4 million people? Where did these numbers come from? Doesn't seem to line up with Canada's national statistics office census which had only 14.98 million households in 2021 and 14.07 million in 2016 in all of canada.
The 16 million homes is an estimate of homes going forward, and is not that far above the existing 15 million homes today. This is a national figure and not just a number for BC. Given the high immigration rates in Canada, 16 million homes is actually a little low as a projection for 2030. Canada's population just passed 40 million this year.
Who's estimate? Based on what data and formulas? The video says the numbers are for only British Columbia so you can't just wave that away by saying it's for Canada. Even if it was all of Canada, 22 million homes iby 2030 would be yearly growth at a rate of nearly 4 times what was seen in 2016-2021
According to CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.) 3.5 million more homes will need to be built by 2030 to reach affordability, for a total of 18 million homes - about 2 million more than the conservative number of 16 million homes mentioned in the video.
It does seem the numbers are pulled from the CMHC report "Canada’s Housing
Supply Shortages:
Estimating what
is needed to solve
Canada’s housing
affordability crisis
by 2030" which estimates homes at almost 16 million in 2019, projects over 18 million by 2030 and estimates 22 million is what will be needed by 2030 to achieve affordability.
You are totally correct and I gave the numbers for the whole of Canada 🙄... Caveat coming in the episode description!
Why would the power company pay everyone to improve their homes so they will buy less power from them? Seems like the opposite of what they would want?
Because it's likely cheaper than trying to increase the grid-capacity across the whole country to cope with rising energy demands, plus build lots more power generation... and they can then offset those rebates against their corporate tax :p
NET ZERO OK - But is it also affordable? Or is it a forced expropriation of the homeowners?
You talk about it not being prescriptive and it isn't that and how Passivhaus is defined globally it's not about this or that technology its all about performance based efficiency.
A "passive house" is absolutely NOT defined as simply being net zero carbon emissions.
A passive house uses no mechanical or electrical systems to heat, cool, or ventilate it.
I don't know who is redefining these terms for you, but they need to stop it. It sounds as if some manufacturer is trying to conflate their product with something that is actually a higher standard. That's kind of like painting your watch gold, and calling it "a gold watch."
Yup - the clue is in the name : *Passive* Haus (House)... that said, the outline at the beginning was pretty good, with the primary focus being on insulation and being airtight, etc... and only adding the 'active' components as the finishing touches (I'm guessing BC has some fairly significant temperature swings between winter and summer, so *some* form of active heating / cooling is probably recommended... but it can be *far* smaller and more energy efficient if the 'passive' elements are built in from the start.
So, no actual info on how to build a passive house in this video?
"Upskilling". 🧐
Nice scenes of detached house zones. Ford F-150 country.
Scientist with a hammer?... If the trades are the ones calling the shots then I am concerned. The trades should be trained on how to install an assortment of products, but the architects and engineers should be the ones who decide on what building strategies are the best. A good person to interview on building science would be Joseph Lstiburek.
None of this is needed. If the building is purely powered and heated by zero emmision generated electricity, there is simply no need for any of this.
....our building is already zero emissions.. Zero in zero out... My solar system powers of 4 bedroomed house cost 15k and breaks even in three years.. Then I'm saving £5,000 pounds a year in heating and electricity here in the UK.. Now factor in the fuel savings if you are lucky enough run electric vehicles chsrging at home & Yr breakeven point becomes even closer.
OK I know this is completely inappropriate and I mean no disrespect but that young woman is impossibly cute
2:00 this guy’s accent is a dead giveaway he’s a Quebecker :) All the clever people leave that shi**y province.
We need to get rid of this Traitor Sewage party of lazy incompetents and start to put in legislation like this in the UK. Our building standards in terms of heat and sound insulation are woefully poor !!!
Only 1/5 of carbon emissions are from homes. It looks like a good way to distract people and cost them money
20% is a big number! So homes and building do have to be dealt with. As does transport, industry, manufacturing and agriculture. to a first approximation they are all 'only 1/5'.
@@xxwookeymy mistake it's half that. About 10.9% in residential. Sure, make new homes efficient but it'll hardly dent the actual problem and it's financially unviable. It would be far more realistic to put pressure on energy producers to switch to nuclear.
@@johans7119 Building new houses to be 'good' (passive-ish) is not 'unviable'. There is a small up-front cost (1-5%) and large long-term savings over the next 100 years. It's been mandated in Brussels since 2015 and worked just fine there. For office/comercial buildings it was found to be cheaper to make a passive building than a conventional one. Other places are following suit (e.g. Scotland).
And just because other areas (agriculture, industry, transport) need to be addressed too is no reason not to stop building inefficient buildings. Decarbonisation is significantly easier if the heating load by heat pumps is 60% lower for all the new buildings and 90% lower for all the refurbed ones. Whether the low-carbon power comes from nuclear or some other source - the less you have to build the cheaper it is.
Building passivehouses _saves_ money (both for the homeowner, and in reduced infrastructure/generation requirement) so there really is no reason not to do it.
Different technologies are applicable for different scenarios. In BC, nuclear is a silly option since there is so much hydro-electric power. Consequently, the next step is going beyond energy generation and moving onto energy efficiency. If you have been to Vancouver recently (I was there 4 weeks ago), you will notice that it has the highest percentage of EV ownership in North America. So fossil-fuel usage is declining rapidly in the province.
There is no need to scream about the petroleum companies any more, since the transition is being economically driven towards EVs (gasoline is over $2 per liter in BC).
One cannot build a step five home on a regular budget simply because of the fact that it requires more insulation, better sealing and better windows which costs more
PH has issues, historical poor air quality and PH design means less windows over insulated walls. Who pays for PH retrofitting since the vast no of homes are already built? PH is still rare for apartments where PH premium building cost would be spread out
I live in a retrofitted PH. The air quality is excellent, and it's extremely pleasant to live in. Yes my house was already built, but it was also cold and draughty and expensive to heat. So I paid to improve it (over 15 years). Most of it was done DIY so it was very affordable. (£2500/yr)
@@xxwookey I am all in favour of PH but the fact is that the vast amount of PH is more easily done in a self-build or architect designed house where the extra cost is baked in at a lower price. With most house prices and construction inflation cost - good enough or meet the minimum standard is the mantra as most will be a vast improvement over whatever home they grew up in or rented. While PH mandates air fans in every room for MHV and that fixes poor air quality the issue is that super tight air leak efforts mean ventilation is even more important as there are no air leaks allowed. Most are not doing this PH investment over 15 years ( they might pay a loan back on it often over the lifetime of the mortgage). Yes there are some fine larger scale PH schemes but PH understanding and skillset is still a tiny choice over the wider home building market. PH is still rare in apartment blocks and public housing. Not surprising when a heat pump is still seen as innovative.
Dang, this is rough. The cost of purchasing a home is going to skyrocket. With every new rule and regulation it becomes more expensive to survive in this world.
Nope.
No it won't. The slight increase in mortgage payment will be more than offset by savings on the utility bills.
Outlawing potential routes is inherently constrictive and destructive. Instead of crushing people's options, why not focus on incentives that will open up better options?
Hurricane proof passive housing, awesome......oh wait.
Canada is loosing out on massive deposits of energy in their oil sands. I think we can have a diversified energy future!
talking about passive housing and only showing disjointed single family houses with grass lawns lmao
There are millions of people in the middle east and africa who know how to build passive houses. Oh wait, their methods are too cheap and not profitable enough, wouldn't want that.
Different climates completely
@@eleycki Doesn't matter, principles of thermodynamics are the same anywhere on earth, or the universe for that matter. Point is that all this stuff has been figured out and modern architecture and even modern "sustainable" architecture is stupid and a huge waste of money and resources.
@@dustman96 talk me through how those countries create passive houses then please?
@@eleycki I'll leave the research to you. But basically they take advantage of thermal mass, orientation to the sun and ventilation strategies to have a relatively comfortable place to live in extreme temperatures. You can adapt these strategies for almost any climate. Throw in a little simple technology and you can have a perfectly comfortable place year round with little to no energy input depending on your environment. Read the book Natural Solar Architecture by David Wright, an easy read that explains the principles and factors, with lot's of simple illustrations to help you.
Let's see if middle east methods would work in a Canadian winter ... nope.
I FINALLY UNSUBSCRIBED YESTERDAY as I was done with cars cars cars and NOW you finally get back to HOMES!??!?? Argh.OK, you get my reprieve.… for now 😊 Keep up covering all options for the 100% electric life.
First get yourself a couple million dollars, if you're in Montana.
If you're in California make that a couple dozen million dollars.
If you're thinking of getting a loan for your passive house, don't. APR went from 5% in May to about 8% this week. The little speculative home I have money down on went from ~$175,000 in interest to $340,000. That's $140,000 more than the principle itself just to borrow the money.
If you have the money to buy a house in cash you're golden right now. If not, you're pretty much more screwed than ever. At least in 'Merica. Could be different elsewhere, but I kinda doubt it. This seems like another worldwide rich v poor thing.
Earthships are passive and made from waste. Recycling wastes energy. We have had passive houses for decades.
Making this video has wasted C02 powering the Internet!!!
So, taxpayers are paying for it. Very socialist.
Yes, it's Canada. We get health care, police service, roads, armed forces and old age security payments this way too. It's great.