Thermal bypass a basic step to improving building performance

I get asked periodically how to increase building performance without spending extra money. Well, better-than-Code performance is going to cost something so I focus on low-hanging fruit: what’s the greatest...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2024

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Keep heat pump and ventilation systems separate for best results

Buildings need fresh air, every single one of them. Even the very best-performing ones will also need some (possibly very little) heating or cooling at peak times of year. Ducting...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2024

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SketchUp’s new release does not work with designPH 2.1

SketchUp 2024 is now available but if you are using designPH, please hold off on updating SketchUp until designPH2.2 is released! Otherwise you won’t be able to use designPH.  PHI...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2024

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Is Passive House actually worth it?

I’m often asked (usually politely): Is building to the Passive House standard actually worth it? Yes it is, is the unequivocal answer. There’s a brilliant summary paper written by Dr...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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Alternative balcony design for low carbon buildings

Global design practice Perkins & Wills has released a beautiful white paper on balconies for buildings concerned with lowering carbon emissions. It considers thermal bridges and overall design considerations. Balconies...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2024

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Build better houses to solve dry year energy problem

Newsflash: using less energy is better than generating more of it. I know that seems obvious given the cost of new electricity generation schemes but it’s even more significantly beneficial...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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Revised ASHRAE standard gets serious on building decarbonisation

ASHRAE in the USA is really focusing on building decarbonisation, finally. ASHRAE Journal March 2024 contains a really readable summary of the changes to ASHRAE Standard 100-2024, Energy and Emissions...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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Simple timber buildings are ripe for retrofits

This Canadian retrofit project is encouraging: it’s an old timber-framed and clad building with single-paned glazing in timber frames. Built in the 1850s, it’s older than the New Zealand homes...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2024

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10 Passive House design tips for keeping cool in summer

The high temperatures this past summer have served to sharpen everyone’s focus on how to design Passive House buildings to remain comfortable for longer when the temps spike. The team...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2024

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Siddall’s latest paper does not say Passive House homes shouldn’t use recirculating kitchen extraction

Mark Siddall is a Passive House pioneer in the UK and his latest (collaborative) paper is of course worth reading. It reviews the indoor air quality (IAQ) in residential Passive...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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Fine particulate pollution is terrible for human health

Today I learned that lymph nodes are heavily impacted by air pollution. This photo shows lymph nodes specifically associated with the lungs and how they are affected by air pollution...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2024

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Design Passive House for your individual client

Should Passive House designers be doing more to design buildings that avoid summer overheating? This article from mainstream business magazine Forbes considers Bahnstadt, a Passive House district in Heidelberg, Germany....

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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Lee home in Cockle Bay is outstanding but it’s not a certified Passive House yet

The Lee family home in Auckland—all 660m2 of it—is indeed newsworthy but it is unfortunate that Stuff has twice jumped the gun (here and here) by describing it as a...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2024

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Morning Report: why are NZ homes so damn hot right now?

Morning Report rang me this week for comment about overheating homes, in the face of record temperature spikes. You can listen to the short segment here, or there’s a print...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jan 2024

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New free tool for exploring climate files

I’ve discovered a climate file exploration tool that will be really useful for Passive House designers. Best, it’s open source, so free to use. This is particularly timely given the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jan 2024

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Replacement cycles should inform climate change mitigation policy

It’s curious there is so much public discussion about electric vehicles and why and how we should ‘flip the fleet’ … and so little about buildings. Yes, we need to...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jan 2024

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Choose the right heat pump

Source: Coming in from the cold: Heat pump efficiency at low temperatures, Duncan Gibb et al. 2023 This graph from a recent European academic paper shows air-source heat pump performance...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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Passivhaus Playbook a great free resource

The latest book from APHA is the Passivhaus Playbook and it’s great. I love the focus on the team and a successful process. The publishers describe it as “a nine-step...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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