And this year it is virtual. OK, it’s not the same as getting our grubby fingers on everything but there are significant benefits to seeing inside Passive Houses around the world from the comfort of our living room. Good work on getting a range of videos shot in time; the quality (particularly sound) varies but all of them provide insights, …
Welcome media attention on improving NZ homes
Stuff ran an impressively long and well-researched story on Passive House and the need for net-zero buildings this week; it’s well worth a read in its entirety and a plug on your social media feed. Good to see the Dunedin co-housing build steadily progressing; wouldn’t it be great if all new homeowners could enjoy living somewhere that functioned as well as …
Choose gas for cooking? Please don’t.
I recommend against combustion devices in homes—all of them. Using gas to cook is particularly bad, with health impacts related to the indoor air pollution it causes. (American think tank RMI calls it a hidden health crisis). If a client specifies a gas hob, first I attempt to talk them out of it. After all, top chefs as Neil Perry, …
Calculating embodied carbon: live presentation at the NAPHA virtual conference
The North American Passive House Network is hosting a virtual conference next month. The tickets are cheaper and you save all those carbon emissions by not flying. Hopefully, you bought your Earlybird ticket already. Sustainable Engineering Director, Jason Quinn is part of the panel discussing “What’s Your Building’s Carbon Debt? You should know.” He and we got lucky, the session …
Reality check: PHPP accuracy in the real world
I’m sometime asked just how accurate PHPP’s models are. This great paper quantifies it. “Are the energy savings of the passive house standard reliable? A review of the as-built thermal and space heating performance of passive house dwellings from 1990 to 2018.” David Johnston, Mark Siddall, Oliver Ottinger, Soeren Peper and Wolfgang Feist When measured in the real world, the …
External insulation facade solutions: thermal facade clips
I’ve been asked about improving the performance of larger buildings. This often requires an external insulation facade solution but getting it right is not always obvious. I’m a fan of timber. But if you are retrofitting a concrete, steel or brick building, continuous external insulation is one way to improve performance. This can be done with external foam insulation and …
New design choices possible in Queenstown and Wellington
Thermal comfort targets have been revised by the Passive House Institute for use in PHPP. Passive House certification requires that windows and doors meet specified thermal comfort targets*. This requirement ensures people inside Passive Houses will enjoy comfortable temperatures everywhere, even if sitting right next to a window in the middle of winter. I became aware some time back that …
Attend the North American PH conference virtually
The North American Passive House Network annual conference will be a great event—and way cheaper than normal due to being virtual. The bad news is the timing sucks for Australia and New Zealand time zones if you want to chat with the speakers live. However, all the recordings will be available to registered participants for later viewing. All the details …
Owl Woods PH nails a design-stage retrofit for performance
Check out a beautiful project from across the Tasman, the Owl Woods Passive House. It’s the 10th certified Passive House in Victoria, Australia and it’s won or still a finalist for a host of design and sustainability awards. Check out photos here; there are even a few construction photos, which are always my favourites. The Passive House Database entry will satisfy …