If you haven’t heard about the Passive Solar versus Passive House bash up argument in Australia, you missed an entertaining example of people talking past each other. I am reminded of my long-running, friendly argument with a local passive solar enthusiast.
In an excellent follow-up article, Dr Paola Leardini points out the starkly obvious: we need both climate sensitive design and energy efficiency. Without a predicted (and verified) performance model, passive solar ideas are often poorly implemented and used to justify whatever someone wanted to design in the first place. Passive solar can be done well and useful passive solar features are included when predicting performance for Passive House designs.