NOTE: My apologies in advance for the confusing temperature scales. While our CERV2 is an amazing device, it is made in the USA and has not yet been taught to play nice at all times with Centigrade temps and the metric system.
All about building and living in a new home built to passive house design standards in Huron County's rural midwestern Ontario. We acknowledge the generosity of many others that have informed and directed our project and in that spirit wish to 'pay it forward' with this blog.
Sunday, 7 July 2019
Summer chilling and observations for a hot sticky week.
NOTE: My apologies in advance for the confusing temperature scales. While our CERV2 is an amazing device, it is made in the USA and has not yet been taught to play nice at all times with Centigrade temps and the metric system.
Tuesday, 5 March 2019
Comfort - does it have to be so boring?
We have conditioned ourselves to fiddle with the thermostat and worry about the humidity but in reality, there is much more to it. One of the many benefits of passive house design is that comfort is built right in. So what are these factors that passive house design accounts for? Turns out that while the solution appears simple, the science is complex.
The basics of thermal comfort
Thermal comfort is a subjective state. It is both psychological and physiological, and as such is one of the most complex but important aspects of building design.
There are three types of heat transfer: conduction (transfer through direct contact with solid materials, like holding a hot cup of coffee), convection (transfer through liquids and gasses, like feeling colder when it’s windy) and radiation (transfer through electromagnetic waves, like feeling hot when close to a fire).
In addition, there are six factors that influence thermal comfort:
Friday, 1 March 2019
Indoor environmental quality is top of mind in a tight house and me with a background of environment sensitivities.
Passive House - the basics
Passive House Principles
Passive building comprises a set of design principles used to attain a quantifiable and rigorous level of energy efficiency within a specific quantifiable comfort level. "Optimize your gains and losses" based on climate summarizes the approach. To that end, a passive building is designed and built in accordance with these five building-science principles:
- Employs continuous insulation throughout its entire envelope without any thermal bridging.
- The building envelope is extremely airtight, preventing infiltration of outside air and loss of conditioned air.
- Employs high-performance windows (double or triple-paned windows depending on climate and building type) and doors - solar gain is managed to exploit the sun's energy for heating purposes in the heating season and to minimize overheating during the cooling season.
- Uses some form of balanced heat- and moisture-recovery ventilation.
- Uses a minimal space conditioning system.
Passive building principles can be applied to all building typologies – from single-family homes to multifamily apartment buildings, offices, and skyscrapers.
Passive design strategy carefully models and balances a comprehensive set of factors including heat emissions from appliances and occupants to keep the building at comfortable and consistent indoor temperatures throughout the heating and cooling seasons. As a result, passive buildings offer tremendous long-term benefits in addition to energy efficiency:
- Superinsulation and airtight construction provide unmatched comfort even in extreme weather conditions.
- Continuous mechanical ventilation of fresh filtered air provides superb indoor air quality.
- A comprehensive systems approach to modelling, design, and construction produces extremely resilient buildings.
- Passive building principles offer the best path to Net Zero and Net Positive buildings by minimizing the load that renewables are required to provide.
The Performance Standard
North American building scientists and builders with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Canadian government were the first to pioneer passive building principles in the 1970s. In the late 1980s the German Passivhaus Institut (PHI) built on that research and those principles and developed a quantifiable performance standard that continues to work well in the Central European and similar climate zones.
Why not act now
“There’s no good reason,” I used to say, “why we don’t build more Passive Houses in this country.” I assumed it was just Canadian denial of our climate; we like to wear thin jackets and complain about the weather. Are we this way with our permanent shelters too?
There are indeed no good reasons. But there are reasons.
Its a brave new world and you need a guide
Rob is a professional engineer in Guelph with a personal passion for passive house, with the training and the experience to provide guidance, modelling, design and oversight to see us onto the right course. @LocalImpactDsgn
Prefab Panels are like pressing the 'easy' button
Word of the week - fenestration - it matters!
Modeling without the Catwalk
Est. Propane Consumption (L)
|
0
|
Litres
| |
Est. Electricity Consumption (kWh)
|
7062
|
kWh
| |
Est. Annual Operating Expenses ($/yr)
| |||
Est. Annual Propane Cost:
|
0.9
|
$/Litre
|
$ -
|
Est. Annual Elec. Cost:
|
0.16
|
$/kWh
|
$ 1,130
|
Total utility cost per year
|
$ 1,130
|
- ASHRAE 2013 & Global Solar Radiation Location = London, ON Airport, Zone 5
- Annual heating demand 6.6 kBtu/sf-iCFA.yr x 3.155 = 20.8 kWh/m2/yr
- Annual cooling demand 1.8 kBtu/sf-iCFA.yr x 3.155 = 5.68 kWh/m2/yr
- Peak heating load = 4.8 BTU/sf-iCFA.h x 3.1546 = 15.1 Watt/Square Meter (W/m²)
- Peak cooling load = 3.8 Btu/sf-iCFA.h x 3.1546 = 12.0 Watt/Square Meter (W/m²)
- PHIUS Recommended max window U value = 0.14 Btu/h.sf.F