Changing the way we build our homes!
Listen to my Radio interview on Passive Houses The Benefits to All
Save on heating, on energy, on repairs and tap into security, longevity and saving our environment.
Passive House Standard
The passive house standard was developed in Austria in 1991. The goal was to create a comfortable home that was both friendly to the environment and efficient to operate. The standard calls for two main measurable outcomes: an airtight structure of no more than .6 air changes per hour at 50 pascals of pressure; and heating and cooling cost not to exceed 15kw per meter squared. To put this into perspective, the way we build houses today, the average house leaks at a rate of 4 to 6 air changes per hour and costs about 150kw per meter squared. That is a full order of magnitude apart, we had a long way to go.
It turns out the way we have been building houses is the wrong way and we can easily build to this standard, gaining a ten times advantage, by applying just a few simple principles. Eliminate thermal bridges, use only tight sealing windows and doors, reduce northern exposed glazing, maximize solar gain in the winter and minimize in the summer.
Pay attention to the details. The revolutionary energy performance of Passive House buildings demands a rigorous and scientific approach to design and construction. Energy performance savings of 80 – 90% (compared to conventional Canadian construction) do not happen by chance.
While Passive House is certainly the world’s most ambitious and verified energy-efficient building standard, many people invest in this type of construction for the higher quality of living.
The many benefits of Passive House construction over regular Canadian Building Code construction include:
- Much better indoor air quality – comfortable humidity levels, low CO2 levels because of comfort ventilation, with optimum ventilation flow-rates calculated for each room
- Increased thermal comfort – the highest level of interior comfort of any building, with all surfaces equally warm (including the windows), no drafts (ever), no setbacks, no temperature swings
- Superior sound insulation – extraordinary air tightness levels, triple-pane glass and thick insulation also provide superior sound insulation – Passive Houses are very quiet indoors!
- Almost-unbelievable energy efficiency – 80-90% better than standard construction, with simply no need for a conventional heating system
- More durable – detailed and advanced design, better building components, proven building science
- Almost no maintenance – very simple mechanical systems compared to normal construction
- Resilient – the most resilient construction standard anywhere, which maintains livable conditions even during power or fuel outages, relies very little on any mechanical systems
- Sustainable – because of very low energy consumption and durable construction
- Versatile – Passive Houses can be built in any climate zone and applied to any building type, utilizing a wide variety of building materials and methods
- Internationally embraced – already over 40,000 units in more than 35 different countries … with numbers growing rapidly from China to Abu Dhabi to Alaska.
Pacific Passive House 