How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

https://archipro.co.nz/articles/architecture/building-without-heating-how-to-build-warm-comfortable-homes-with-virtually-no-heating-archipro

by whereistimbo • 5 years ago

365 326 5 years ago

archipro.co.nz

dave333• 5 years ago

They should also look at the Skytherm Roof which can both heat and cool a building passively. See

https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/harold-hay-skyt...

CorrectHorseBat• 5 years ago

I don't see anything about heating a building?

codefreakxff• 5 years ago

It’s vaguely in the article. Says in the winter the process is reversed

Terry_Roll5• 5 years ago

Its all very well using environmental energy sources to heat and cool a building, but very little attention is given over to clearing the air. Besides the pollutants from cleaning products and product breakdown, CO2 levels inside a building can have a stimulating effect on the body, which kind of destroys the purpose of a relaxation of a home.

surfmike• 5 years ago

The passive house standard requires mechnical ventilation using heat exchangers to minimize energy loss. http://tepperarchitects.com/?p=522

Terry_Roll5• 5 years ago

Yeah but what is a healthy Air Changes per Hour (ACH)?

The building regs here in the UK are a bit all over the place, I had to direct some questions to the local authority planning dept because their legislation was like a poorly written computer program and they couldnt answer the questions.

The legislation doesnt quantify the risks properly imo, at least here in the UK.

Cthulhu_3• 5 years ago

There was a big Thing in the neighbourhood I live in (built ~15 years ago) where this kind of two-way ventilation system did not work correctly; it did not have the right capacity on the one hand, and was too loud on the other (meaning people shut it off). But they're so well insulated that that was not an option.

My house has a one-way ventilation system, air is sucked in through vents in the windows. We keep it at the lowest setting though, again because of noise, but that seems to be all right for us.

goodpoint5• 5 years ago

CO2 levels inside a building can have a stimulating effect on the body, which kind of destroys the purpose of a relaxation of a home

Citation really needed.

Terry_Roll5• 5 years ago

You know where google scholar, pubmed and wiki is? Or do you want to get into a discussion about under-carboxylation and dietary intake of nutrients, and CO2 blood saturation levels?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia#Tolerance

SenHeng6• 5 years ago

I'm in the middle of building a PassivHaus. The building itself is mostly done and we're working on the interior. There are still a few gaps that haven't been plugged and the heat exchangers have not yet been installed. I'm above 800m elevation, snowstorms every weekend. It's cold here. My house also actually faces West instead of South, so I'm not getting much heat from the sun. This was a surprise to use because the previous house on the same site had the same orientation and was scorching during the evenings, it's amazing what a pair of Low-E triple paned windows can do.

Despite all that, the builders manage to work inside the building with a single kerosene stove[0]. And the building stays comfortable for several hours even after the stove has been turned off.

[0] https://nimmi.jp/kurashi-stove/

inovica• 5 years ago

Sounds great. Do you have a blog or anything online about your project?

SenHeng6• 5 years ago

Unfortunately no.

osobo• 5 years ago

I'm looking into making a house sustainable right now and the windows are actually a point of contention. One side thinks super-high insulated (triple pane) windows are a waste of money, the other swears by them. Assuming the frame doesn't leak, does triple really make that much of a difference?

a_square_peg3• 5 years ago

This depends on your house - heat tends to leak out through the lowest path of resistance so if you have a well-insulated house with leaky window, it would certainly be the case but without considering what the rest of the house is like, it would be impossible to tell how much they would help.

jeffreygoesto• 5 years ago

For us it did. Estimated 2 degree Celsius on the inside during winter already make a big difference in comfort and how you will use the space in front of the windows.

Windows, walls, ceilings and so on have to match of course, our house is overall well insulated.

supermatt• 5 years ago

Depends on your climate and the heat differential between inside and outside. Triple glazing is effectively double the R-value of double glazing, so in a cold climate yeah..

mcot23• 5 years ago

Get yourself a FLIR (the phone attached ones are not that expensive) and check for yourself. It is a great tool.

dredmorbius4• 5 years ago

As others have said, solutions depend on your climate, and especially on whether you principally have heating or cooling loads.

For cold climates, designers such as Thorstein Chlupp (Rienna LLC, in Fairbanks, AK) rely on triple-paned high emissivity windows for solar gain, and external thermal shutters at night to reduce radiative loss.

For warm climates, you'll want low emissivity glazing, as well as awnings or landscaping which block direct summer sun while admitting light. For winter time, you can probably get by with internal thermal curtains in winter, though an external storm glazing or shutter may also be helpful.

Having windows face the equator (that is, south-facing in the northern hemisphere, north-facing south of the equator) will increase light and decrease heat loss. Glazing on the pole-side of your home is generally reduced, and in sufficiently cold climates, eliminated.

More than you'd ever want to know (2h26m video) here:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Xen_VWyDezY

atoav• 5 years ago

They can be a dream in terms of noise blocking as well.

pomian• 5 years ago

Yes. Makes measurable difference. Especially big picture windows. Other things to consider: is the type of glass. In places like Arizona you may not want sunlight to get through, but further north, the sun can provide a great deal of heat. So you want transmissivity. To stop that in the summer, you have a overhang roof, far enough out, to block sun in summer but not winter. Also, be smart installing the window, to prevent leakage around the frame, lots of good tricks there. For example- Avoid tightness of frame.

yoyopa• 5 years ago

yes, it's like wearing a sweater vs. wearing two sweaters

poseva11• 5 years ago

You must also be careful on how you mount the windows. Have a look at the german standard called "RAL montage" to see that you need an inner and outer membrane and then have a look on where to mount the window inside the wall.. the best solution is to mount it outside the wall in the insulation, the second best solution is to align it at the face of the wall.

fy202• 5 years ago

Windows have a U or R value like insulation, so you can use that to compare.

We are currently building a house and the triple glazed windows we chose have a U value of 0.9. The same manufacturer also makes double glazed windows which have a U value of 1.3.

jaclaz10• 5 years ago

Generaly speaking, yes, BUT the design needs to be taken into account.

A window (good as it might be) is "worse" than walls (besides being much more costly), the modern design trends are for extremely huge windows, that (whilst they give much more light, which expecially in northern climates is a wanted feature) are a problem, from a thermal viewpoint.

The typical size of windows in "normal" houses varies (depending on countries) like 1/8 to 1/12 of area of the floor of the room they are in, modern designs can be often 1/5 or 1/6, it is clear that the less amount of window surface you have the less relevant are its characteristics, and you have to consider also the effect of shutters or similar.

olau• 5 years ago

In the house I'm living in, which was built in a transition point between making sure houses don't leak and the realization that you then need active ventilation, I have the problem that the windows are not insulating enough, so I end up with water condense on the inside when it's freezing outside. If you are going to replace the windows, I would definitely buy triple-paned, unless you only have a small temperature difference.

liveoneggs• 5 years ago

they are worth it in cold climates if you use fixed or very fancy casement windows with maintained seals. Double-hung will just leak around frames and sides.

Also ensure you use a good brand which will be around when you need a replacement and hope to get an actual match.

SenHeng6• 5 years ago

I’ve not had a chance to test it in summer yet but it’s still cold to the touch even in the evening sun so I guess that’s a good sign?

I went with Low E specifically because I’d rather be cold than hot and wanted to block out the scorch from the evening sun.

spiffistan• 5 years ago

How is the ventilation and air quality? I work in a passive house in and we're experiencing significant issues with the indoor air quality when the building HVAC turns low.

SenHeng6• 5 years ago

I wouldn’t know, they aren’t installed yet. Japan doesn’t really do central heating or ventilation so I’ve got 4 smaller air exchangers all over the house and they’re supposed to work together somehow?

sambeau• 5 years ago

Is a stove like that not really dangerous in an air-tight house? Where do the fumes go?

signaturefish• 5 years ago

Most air-tight houses have an integrated MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) system, which is kind of the inverse of an HVAC setup. There's a constant small air current being moved through the house, and when it exhausts to the outside world a heat-exchanger captures as much heat as possible from the exiting air and uses it to heat the entering air. Airtightness means you can control where the air enters and exits, which means this trick is possible.

All that being said, I'd expect a permanently-installed stove to have a flue (which results in the stove technically being a leak, but that's solvable). I assume the kerosene stove mentioned above is in use while the house is incomplete, so not yet airtight.

SenHeng6• 5 years ago

Yeah, like fish said it’s not airtight yet so probably not that big of a deal.

yboris• 5 years ago

For heating a home efficiently, one approach is a rocket mass heater. It does require burning firewood, but if that's an acceptable/desirable quality, this technology seems far more efficient than standard fireplaces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater

SenHeng6• 5 years ago

I have thought about that but it’s a bit too much custom work to add into a passive house.

I might try one in a future garden shed/office.

locallost2• 5 years ago

I watched a report on a block of "passive houses" in Germany and the people liked it, but had a complaint that the air is too dry, so they dried their laundry indoors. I'm a fan of the idea, so not really critical, but I wonder what it's really like to live in one.

chippytea• 5 years ago

Modern heat exchangers allow you to set the air humidity.

dredmorbius4• 5 years ago

Indoor plants are also useful in this regard, as the plants (and their containers) will return humidity to the air.

poseva11• 5 years ago

Instead of a heat recovery ventilation you can use energy recovery ventilation which gets back some of the humidity, otherwise just buy a cheap electric boiling humidifier and it you get the job done. What is important that in the coldest part of the winter you can turn down the ventilation to a minimal, something like 0.3 hourly exchanges per hour.

KaiserPro6• 5 years ago

winter you can turn down the ventilation to a minimal

The problem is that the Heat exchanger actively draws moisture out, as it has a huge cold surface area that forces water out of the air. If you don't change the air it feels stuffy.

orthoxerox• 5 years ago

Yes, the ventilation system inside a passive house needs not only a heat exchanger, but a humidifier as well. Actually, I'd rather dry my laundry to humidify the room than rely on a humidifier that can grow bacteria and mold inside.

Cthulhu_3• 5 years ago

[...] than rely on a humidifier that can grow bacteria and mold inside.

That's down to maintenance and care; change the filters and clean it regularly. Like everything else in your house. You need to change and maintain filters in a heat exchanger as well.

gambiting3• 5 years ago

>than rely on a humidifier that can grow bacteria and mold inside.

There are humidifiers with UV-C lamps inside that sterilize themselves as they run. Dyson makes some, but I've seen them from other brands too.

Mromson5• 5 years ago

It saddens me that construction quality is almost irrelevant when building a new building nowadays. The profit difference between a well-isolated passive building and one that merely meets the minimal standards, is often very small, so why bother building a passive building?

My personal interest in passive buildings generally revolve around maintenance. Passive houses seem to require far less maintenance.

sb057• 5 years ago

The profit difference between a well-isolated passive building and one that merely meets the minimal standards, is often very small, so why bother building a passive building?

People making decisions about which contractor to use (both for public and private projects) are often mandated to choose the absolute cheapest bidder, sometimes with the ability of choosing a different one if they file mountains of paperwork explaining why.

pjerem• 5 years ago

That's what norms are for.

If minimal thermal requirements are written in the law, even the cheapest builder must build a highly insulated home. In my country, it's mandatory to have well insulated home, to prove (with tests) that you respect the norms, and it's also mandatory to have renewable heat source (mainly heat pumps). Sure, it costs a little more, but with the rise of real estate prices, it's still way cheaper to build well insulated houses.

The building cost since those new norms increased about maybe dozens of thousands euros. It's not even a lot given the exceptional thermal comfort you get from your money.

LunaSea2• 5 years ago

Passive houses seem to require far less maintenance.

Interesting! Could you explain a bit more on how you came to this conclusion?

Mromson5• 5 years ago

In general, this conclusion comes from the notion that a passive house has fewer moving parts and requires less attention. A poorly insulated house demands that you take more active measures to ensure that it keeps a positive temperature (so water pipes don't freeze), this is extra pertinent should the power go out. A well-insulated house is also likely to have fewer points of failure (water getting into cracks and whatnot).

A proper passive house generally only has one maintenance point, which is the ventilation / air filtration system, and temperature control is easy. You don't have to worry much about the insides being too hot or too cold, as it should keep whatever temperature you set regardless of the weather outside.

With all that said, you should generally take everything I said with a grain of doubt, as I'm not an expert, and someone could well shoot down all my points in the comments. ;-)

My prime goal with any house I buy is to make sure that I have to do as little as possible; never worry about water being in the wrong place, and never worry about the power bill, or temperature in general.

lostlogin2• 5 years ago

The houses in the article have a lot of wood and decking.

New Zealand is savage on exposed timber. I have tried multiple products from expensive to cheap and have the same result on all.

A deck which gets rain and faces north west needs re-coating every 6 months to 1 year. The combination of heat, UV and water is just savage.

goldcd2• 5 years ago

Have you looked at modified woods like Accoya? (50 year guarantee above ground, 25 in water)

Cthulhu_3• 5 years ago

It saddens me that construction quality is almost irrelevant when building a new building nowadays.

Depends on where you live; houses in the Netherlands are built to high standards when it comes to things like insulation, build quality, electrification, etc.

Are houses in the US still built with 2x4's and drywall? You'd think they would move to what we have here in the Netherlands, mostly sturdy concrete blocks, insulation layer, and a pretty brickwork or brickwork-looking facade.

I mean the amount of clips I see on the youtubes of people breaking walls make me cringe. A wall should break you, not the other way around, :D

Mromson5• 5 years ago

Some countries have comparatively high building standards, but none (that I'm aware of) come close to a Passive House standard.

My gripe isn't as much what the minimum requirement is, and more the incentive to never go above it, because property prices are generally only going up with little regard to building standards.

vinay427• 5 years ago

Are houses in the US still built with 2x4's and drywall? You'd think they would move to what we have here in the Netherlands, mostly sturdy concrete blocks

Do you mind explaining why you feel this way? There are definitely benefits to reinforced concrete such as durability and resistance to certain natural elements, but as far as I can tell modern fire-treated wood construction tends to be nearly as safe in fires or superior in earthquakes, has better insulation, and is more ecological during the construction process. Overall, I would prefer reinforced concrete, but it’s more for the “qualitative advantages” as it feels more reassuring to the touch.

Speaking of electrification, one complaint I have of most construction in at least continental Europe is the consistent dearth of electrical outlets in residential settings. Living in Switzerland for years and visiting other countries, it seemed like an extension cord across the bedroom or living room was nearly always needed due to awkward and very limited outlet placement. The fire code in a state like California seems to have much stricter mandates to prevent this sort of thing.

adev_2• 5 years ago

I mean the amount of clips I see on the youtubes of people breaking walls make me cringe. A wall should break you, not the other way around

The external wall un old French house can easily reach 55/60cm of pure concrete mixed with stones in cold places.

Trust me, it will break you and specially break your will to make any hole in them ^^

lotsofpulp• 5 years ago

I mean the amount of clips I see on the youtubes of people breaking walls make me cringe. A wall should break you, not the other way around, :D

Why? I think calculating heat loss, noise levels, wireless signals, fire resistance, ecological cost, etc would be decent metrics to judge the merits of a wall.

But if you are living in civilization, I do not see why the wall withstanding the impact of a body is something I should care about. Also, there is almost always an external envelope of exterior siding plus plywood sheathing that I have never seen penetrated by an individual without tools.

dx0347• 5 years ago

I doubt the maintenance part. I lived in one and experienced more maintenance. You have the heat exchanger as an additional moving part which needs cleaning, new filters, etc.

Also, you need a perfect seal between inside and outside. So any cables going outside (blinds, air conditioning which you'll still want if it's 40C outside, etc) needs to be sealed and is thus much harder to replace or repair.

mcot23• 5 years ago

I wish more municipalities would mandate tighter homes with good ventilation. Recently when searching for a new home it was so dishearting to see brand new developments where the homes had standard insulation, bad orientation for things like solar and passive heating and giant fossil fuel based heating systems instead of heat pumps. I decided to instead go the oppostie direction and buy a 1960’s split level that I am modernizing.

It’s been quite a challenge to retrofit, we really need to be building to a higher standard for new stock. While renewable energy is all the rage this rarely gets a mention.

jsiaajdsdaa4• 5 years ago

In America the latest building craze seems to be a veneer of beauty over bad functional design, and a strong mentality of "fuck you pay me" from the seller.

gambiting3• 5 years ago

What do you mean "latest"? Hasn't it (almost) always been like this?

uoaei• 5 years ago

Yep, the flippers and the cash-hungry are riding this high as long as they can. It's bred quite a bit of entitlement but with the bonus that their poor attitudes are rewarded with large sums. This will happen (and has been happening) as long as housing is an investment vehicle with profit potential.

theshrike79• 5 years ago

Also: It's illegal to build multi-storey housing in large parts of America. You know, the kind where you have stores on the ground floor and apartments above. Illegal and actively NIMBYed against.

A grocery store for a neighbourhood, within walking/biking distance? Illegal, against zoning laws.

mdp20215• 5 years ago

with good ventilation

Mandate windows?!

heat pumps

That means (if I understand you correctly), fans. That is noise pollution - some will not have it, and some will not bear it. And (after experience), heat pumps can be inadequate for heating: they can raise a temperature, not warm the environment.

adev_2• 5 years ago

That means (if I understand you correctly), fans.

It does not always means fans.

Geothermal or aquathermal heat pumps are fan-less, very silent and performs amazingly in cold climate. I have one home.

perceptronas• 5 years ago

Windows>

Heat exchangers can be up to 90% effective at saving heat, while window ventilation will be 0%.

Noise pollution>

In my cold climate, whoever goes with heat pumps - they usually go with "air-water" systems. Meaning only outside you have fans and inside you have your typical floor heating.

patrickk• 5 years ago

Modern air or ground source heat pumps tend to be quiet, even silent, at least according to some deep dives down the Youtube rabbit hole on passive houses. Check out the "Moonstone house" on Youtube for example.

https://youtu.be/sSE8PurhfQs

elric• 5 years ago

You're wrong on both counts.

Windows don't make for very good ventilation. They are prone to letting in either too much or too little air, which means you're either wasting a lot of heat, or are not getting enough fresh air. Mechanical ventilation with energy recovery is far superior. Windows, of course, are great for letting in natural light and for creating a sense of spaciousness etc.

Heat pumps don't always need big fans, only air source heat pumps do, and even those can be made to be pretty quiet. Not much louder than a gas furnace.

They definitely can warm an entire house (in fact, they do so on a regular basis in many houses in many parts of the world), even in the coldest of climates. Heating a Passivhaus requires only a tiny unit (except for hot water, but let's ignore that for a minute).

jaclaz10• 5 years ago

A well insulated house needs some sort of mechanical ventilationm otherwise you will have problems with humidity and - in worst cases - mould.

The ventilating units are usually placed in the basement and are not noisy (but need some maintenance and cleaning).

There are heat pumps that simply heat water and are suitable for underfloor heating, no fans.

Underfloor heating is usually "slower" (compared to air heating) but works just fine, actually better.

dx0347• 5 years ago

If you ventilate purely via windows, you'll need to always pay attention to avoid any mould. With a ventilation system hooked up to a heat exchanger, there's basically zero chance you'll ever experience mold.

mcot23• 5 years ago

A heat pump can be air source or geothermal and you can use them to create hot water for a hydronic system or forced air (ducted or non-ducted). So not all of those will create the same noise levels. As they can be virtually any size and now work well at very low temps, I don’t see how they can be inadequate for heating. I’d have to hear of an example.

Up in the Northeast U.S. they are still putting oil fired boilers in new homes since gas isn’t super common outside of larger cities. I’d like to see more new homes have solar, heat pumps and possibly even stationary batteries in the future. These are going to be essential if we want to get off fossil fuels.

dt3ft• 5 years ago

I'd love to see them try this in Sweden :)

dredmorbius4• 5 years ago

Fairbanks, AK:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Xen_VWyDezY

m_eiman• 5 years ago

There are plenty of passive houses in Sweden.

alkonaut5• 5 years ago

They are quite different in construction though. The insulation on this house corresponds to a garage in the nordics today, or how the building code looked in the 1970s and 1980s. Today the code requires twice this much insulation for a normal home (around 300mm), and it's still nowhere near a passive one.

locallost2• 5 years ago

One well known example of modern efficient houses is the one Amory Lovins built in the Rocky Mountains in the US. It gets quite cold there, yet he likes to point out he grows bananas in the house.

dredmorbius4• 5 years ago

Can confirm, I visited RMI in the early 2000s.

The entire structure is built with the climate and site in mind. Large south-facing windows, thermal mass in the floor and walls. At the time, the major energy draw was laserprinters, given that the xerographic process used relies on a heating element kept at about 400F. Switching to inkjet printers was a major energy gain (though ink costs might make this a financial wash).

fy202• 5 years ago

Come to Lithuania (we have winters of -25C and summers of 35C). All new homes have to be build to a building code that actually exceeds Passive House in some cases. In our apartment (built 2016) we don't even turn on the heating until it gets close to 0c outside.

Moru2• 5 years ago

First one was built 20 years ago but getting more popular after 2010. You can order them, it's a building standard so does not require anything from you except money. But they say it's not that much more expensive than a normal swedish house since we already have a lot of isolation and 3 glass windows as standard for the climate.

2rsf• 5 years ago

So what is the difference and why does my modern Swedish house, with heat recovery ventilation and east-south facing windows consumes more energy to heat?

bjoli• 5 years ago

Two years ago I spent a week in a passive house near Piteå. The outside temperature was -25c and heating the house was done exclusively using an accumulation tank of solar heated water (yes. It worked just fine in -25 if the sun was shining for more than 2 hour a day).

The only problem was that it got too hot when we were making food or running the tumble dryer.

Heating for that house was between 500 and 2000 kwh/yr depending on how much the sun was shining.

_Microft• 5 years ago

Note that the sun is towards north in NZ.

tigerlily• 5 years ago

there is no excuse for New Zealand homes to be damp, cold or drafty

Yet we build them this way over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

bogle3• 5 years ago

Lack of building regs?

mattlondon• 5 years ago

I wonder how these "no heating"/"no cooling" homes work in situations like mine: my wife is permanently freezing cold, sitting around inside with multiple layers on, sometimes a blanket, and the heating on full-blast while I am walking around in shorts and t-shirt sweating?

I.e. people have different ideas about what a comfortable temperature is. In my wife's example it seems like unless she can actually "feel the heat" as it were, she is not comfortable.

jsiaajdsdaa4• 5 years ago

Sounds like one of you might have a health condition. She could be underweight or anemic, you could be overweight or etc.

guythedudebro• 5 years ago

I think one of them is a woman.

newaccount742• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure that totally healthy people also prefer different temperatures.

And it's common that women prefer it slightly warmer; men do have a slightly higher metabolic rate on average even when they have the same height/weight, and those extra calories that the body uses end up as heat.

mellavora• 5 years ago

Maybe not a health condition, might just be the body's set point.

There are three biological states: body is cold and needs to warm itself, body temp is right (no effort required), body is hot and needs to cool itself.

I was born in hot southern climate, my wife in a cold norther climate. For me, "body is cold" is rather unnatural and uncomfortable. For my wife, "body is hot" is the same. Her internal furnace is always on, my internal cooling system is always on.

She is happiest at 18C ambient, I am happiest at 22C.

If you want a biological mechanism to explain this, it's called epigenetics, and the key factor would be the environment your mother was in while you were in the womb and she was forming your body.

rsynnott4• 5 years ago

It's fairly normal for different people to prefer different temperatures, and to a large extent it's probably a learned thing. In particular, the idea of what normal room temperature is varies quite widely around the world.

fullstop2• 5 years ago

Not OP, but my wife and I are both quite thin and have no health issues. She is always colder than I am.

newaccount742• 5 years ago

You can still control the temperature in a Passivhaus, the difference is just that you need much less energy to heat it.

It won't solve the problem that people prefer different temperatures, though.

wcoenen2• 5 years ago

It's the opposite for us; I'm the one feeling cold, while my wife is comfortable. I started wearing a layer of thermal underwear in the cold seasons to compensate.

bee_rider• 5 years ago

You must embrace the cold. Any attempt to warm yourself will just make your body expect warmth. Never turn on the heat, and you'll slowly adapt along with the seasons. Maybe set the thermostat to 33F so that the pipes don't freeze...

dx0347• 5 years ago

For me, socks did the trick. I never had cold feet but always felt colder than colleagues in the office. An additional layer of socks made me feel warm enough to agree with the others on a thermostat setting. Still amazes me how much of an effect this had.

mdp20215• 5 years ago

about what a comfortable temperature is ... it seems like unless she can actually "feel the heat" as it were, she is not comfortable

You wrote it yourself... Comfort is not with the temperature (scalar quantity for C implemented roleplaying¹), it is with the "warmth", with the effect obtained in the internal environment, a quality you feel. This is why heat exchange feels ineffective compared to radiators. Sheer temperature is only partially indicative even outdoors.

Spend time in a car under the sun, in general, but even when paradoxically heated by the sun to a good internal temperature in cold winter, and see the reaction of the body.

(¹A memory cell with a scalar for "health", one for "strength", one for "agility"...)

pqs• 5 years ago

To feel warm, radiation is more effective than temperature.

dx0347• 5 years ago

From experience I can say that it works. Simply by using different clothes (as you described, t-shirt vs multiple layers). The only people who really struggle with no heating homes are those who need colder temperatures to sleep. I had several guests who complained that they'd like it cooler at night than during the day. However, that's not really possible if the house isn't really heated anyway and thus won't lose heat during the night.

lbriner4• 5 years ago

Sometimes this is down to "micro" draughts rather than the temperature. Currently, I am sitting in about 19 degrees C inside and that should be plenty warm but in my T-shirt, I can feel very low level cold draughts caused by windows, small gaps etc. and some people are definitely more sensitive to these.

As others have said though, you can hopefully find a suitable temperature that both of you accept and it won't cost as much to keep it there.

poseva11• 5 years ago

I've also built a simple and small (99sqm) PassivHaus in Romania, 5 years ago. Everybody, and I mean everybody from family to friends called me nuts, but I've got my payback this winter when the energy prices went trough the roof and I'm just slightly affected.

The house is elevated from the ground on 12 concrete columns so that I can insulate under the foundation beams using glass foam, insulation on walls is 30 cm of EPS graphite, underfloor 45 cm EPS and on the roof, 50 cm and the orientation is full on south. For heating it consumes about 1500-2000 kWh per year (December, January, February and a maybe a small part of March)

What is the big difference between houses built in North America and Europe is that the European houses are built using concrete and masonry which give them a lot of thermal mass which is crucial to this kind of builds.

Have a look here [0], this is the first PassivHaus in my area and is nicely documented. The cost of building a PassivHaus in my country typically goes about 20-25% more than a traditional one.

[0] http://www.sdac.ro/site/archives/category/passivehouse

kitd2• 5 years ago

It is interesting that you insulate under the house.

One of the more intriguing passive house designs I saw was one where the insulation went down 2-3m into the ground all around the house footprint. This trapped the natural ground heat within that area and fed it upwards into the house. It took about 18 months for the ground to warm up, but once it was there, the ground/house warmed itself with virtually no input.

This was in the UK. Colder climates may vary ofc.

whirlwin• 5 years ago

We have an old house from 1988 located in Norway. Walking on the non-insulated wooden floor is very unpleasant. We will refurbish, and insulate under the floor, but it will not be anything near a passive house because of other construction shortcomings

leobg• 5 years ago

Exactly. Talking about thermal mass!

There’s also the movement of underground houses. They use the ground for cooling in summer and for insulation in winter. Also it apparently makes for great noise reduction, in spite of having lots of windows, light and views.

See the book “Recovering America: A More Gentle Way to Build”.

poseva11• 5 years ago

Really interesting. I've read about also "foundation insulation skirt" that allows you to create a warmer earth mass under the house.

To be honest this was the biggest "complaint" that others had in regards of how a built the house, the general knowledge says that the earth is warm and you don't need to insulate against it... but the earth is maybe 5-10 degree, of course warmer than outside -5..-10 but still a lot colder than what we want inside the house, 20,21 degree C.

mrweasel• 5 years ago

It is interesting that you insulate under the house.

Isn't that pretty normal, I mean maybe not three meters down, but modern foundations are required to be isolated in many places. The legal requirement in Denmark is at least 300mm of isolation under the house.

Gravityloss2• 5 years ago

How would that work? Average temperature in the UK is about 15 C. If your house is at 24 C, this would mean you are constantly leaking heat into the ground from the bottom...

I guess one can consider the cube of earth an insulator, it's got a lousy insulation value per meter but it makes it up in thickness.

markvdb5• 5 years ago

It is interesting that you insulate under the house.

Near our place in the countryside, required foundation depth is 1.4m to protect from frost heave. Use an insulated slab and that requirement goes away. The insulation keeps the heat in the ground. It protects the ground under the house from freezing.

Nobody cares about regulations here, but they do about getting proper foundations...

throw0101a4• 5 years ago

It is interesting that you insulate under the house.

This is part of the building code in many areas: do a search for [under] "slab insulation".

* https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/information-sheets...

* https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/insulation/i...

It should be at least R-10 (RSI 1.8):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2dNp9bicSk

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKp0wRzvR-g

alksjdalkj• 5 years ago

It is interesting that you insulate under the house.

I think anyone who's gone camping will appreciate the need for insulation between the ground and whatever you're trying to keep warm - a good sleeping pad is crucial for keeping warm.

voisin4• 5 years ago

Do you have a link on this? I’d love to read more about this.

madaxe_again5• 5 years ago

We’ve just built a 45m2 log cabin to passive standards here in Portugal - heavily insulated in walls, floor, roof, lifted off the ground on concrete columns, double glazed, only heat source is a 2.5kw log stove. Everyone here (who all live in uninsulated concrete houses heated by open fireplaces) said we will freeze in the winter, roast in the summer. We situated the house on a north facing slope, to minimise sun exposure in the summer. Means little direct light in the winter, but we think (have yet to experience a summer in it) the balance will be good.

As I write this, the stove is out, having burned out overnight, it’s -11 outside, and 25 inside. We are getting through a ridiculously tiny volume of firewood compared to when we were living in a more traditional house for here - less than ⅛ the volume.

Insulation works. It’s also cheap. I don’t understand why people would build new structures without it.

mschuster91• 5 years ago

Insulation works. It’s also cheap. I don’t understand why people would build new structures without it.

People are a bit sceptical about many insulation forms... plastic-based stuff is either a fire hazard (see Grenfell Tower) or extremely toxic waste (if it has been treated with fire suppressants), asbestos is completely banned for good reasons, and rock/glass wool can also spread nasty ultra-fine dust.

phillc73• 5 years ago

It would be very interesting to learn more about this build. Was it something pre-fabricated (I've seen "kit" log homes advertised) or something completely custom?

voisin4• 5 years ago

What do you do for fresh air? We have a very well insulated cabin heated by fire, but find the CO2 builds up, particularly overnight with no doors opening, and if we aren’t very quick to close the fire once it gets going, PM2.5 can jump quickly.

jmrm3• 5 years ago

People doesn't give the massive importance the isolation has. Some years ago we remodelled our home and added XPS (Extruded Polystyrene) to insulate the roof of the house. After that we use the AC only three or four days in the year, and before that we had to use it at least a complete summer month. That house is in the south-interior of Spain, so heat is no joke here.

If somebody are constructing or remodelling any house I recommend it to add any insulation they can in any shape, in less than five years you'll recover what you spend, and if you add PV panels for electricity or a thermosiphonic system to heat water, you'll recover the investment in about 10 years, with a healthy amount of available health in the devices to continue saving money with a proper maintenance.

fullstop2• 5 years ago

That house is in the south-interior of Spain, so heat is no joke here.

I looked up a few areas (Ciudad Real) to see what you meant by heat, but it seems quite similar to a good portion of the northern USA. This makes sense, I suppose, given the similar latitude.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 5 years ago

Insulation is so, so important. I work out of my garage currently and Texas winters get reasonably chilly and of course summers are hot. I'm lucky enough that my garage is actually under a room in my house such that it's insulated (as you imply, roof insulation is one of the most important places to insulate). Even simply adding padded insulation and trim to the exterior door and garage door made it viable enough to stay cool in the summer with zero extra cooling and warm in the winter with a small infrared heater.

franciscop2• 5 years ago

What people definitely don't give enough importance is CO2 buildup as well. The more isolated a place is, and smaller, the more environment friendly it is BUT the more likely it is to build up CO2, which leads to headaches.

I installed a CO2 meter both at my current home, and at my parent's home for when I go back for Christmas. In my home, it's a fairly big open place so it takes ~2 days of closed windows (0-3C outside) to reach 2000PPM (recommended under 1000, above 2000 starts affecting you, 5000 is the legal limit[1]). However, at my family home where I grew up it's a tiny room and it reaches 3000-4000 just by sleeping there with the window and door closed. So the headaches of "visiting family" might in big part be explained by this.

PS, incidentally in Spain!

[1] https://www.kane.co.uk/knowledge-centre/what-are-safe-levels...

voisin4• 5 years ago

What about windows? I find buildings with few or small windows to be unmanageably dreary, but the math works out that no matter how insulated you make the walls if you have a good amount of glazing on the walls the effective R value drops quite low.

fouc• 5 years ago

It seems like historically people underestimated the insulation value of polyurethane because apparently it doesn't necessarily do well on the conventional R-value score.

Apparently a solid inch of sprayed polyurethane can provide 90% insulation, and 2 inches gets you to 99% insulation.

https://www.monolithic.org/blogs/presidents-sphere/r-value-f...

throw0101a4• 5 years ago

What is the big difference between houses built in North America and Europe is that the European houses are built using concrete and masonry which give them a lot of thermal mass which is crucial to this kind of builds.

Here's a 500 sq. m. (5000 sq. ft.) house built with heating equipment that uses 1800W (the equivalent of a hair drier):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vul4vMFdkA

The same person building his own personal home up to Passive House standards:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBOvflXoWlw

You do not need concrete† and masonry to make homes efficient. Switching from using 2x4s @16" off centre (OC), to 2x6 @24" OC ("advanced framing") would allow for less wood use, less thermal bridging, and more cavity space for insulation.

† It should be noted that concrete creates a lot of CO2 emissions, as does baking bricks. Growing wood on the other hand is a way to sequester carbon.

poseva11• 5 years ago

I agree, you do not need concrete and brick but you also need to take into account the local traditions. For ex. building a wood house (framing or CLT) would have cost much more than concrete and bricks and was also much more prone to errors because of the builders lack of experience, at least in my area and country.

Recently in Romania it really took of building houses using CLT (cross-laminated-timber) but it costs so much more than a regular brick and mortar house that few people afford it.

When -15 outside and 20 degrees inside, my house requires 2000W to keep the balance. This kind of simulations are done using PHPP package from PassivHaus Institut.

L.E. What I wanted to point out, thermal mass can have a huge impact on the house energy footprint.. to give you an example, today and tomorrow will be sunny days and this will drive my interior temp to about 23-24 degrees, this heat will heat-up the masonry and slabs and then give me back the heat in the next days when there will be no sun.

bluGill2• 5 years ago

Modern codes have moved back to 2x4, then they put continuous foam on the outside of that to make the total the width of a.2x6 wall. Wood is not a great insulator and you have to have some

Mvandenbergh5• 5 years ago

Moving insulation outside the frame also helps reduce the effect of thermal bridging although with timber that's not so important as it is with steel.

oldsecondhand2• 5 years ago

High thermal mass is definitely more energy efficient in the summer, when you can "store the cold" from the night into the next day.

goodpoint5• 5 years ago

small (99sqm)

Is that correct? 99 is not small at all.

poseva11• 5 years ago

Small in comparison with a typical single family homes that goes >150 sqm in my area. I completely agree with you, 99 sqm is more than enough for a 4 people family.

k__• 5 years ago

A friend of mine, who is an architect, told me the technology is ripe to build houses that produce even more energy than they consume, but people simply don't want to live in them.

The article talks about "using the best windows", the problem my friend saw in many of such houses was simply that the dwellers would either open the windows too often, losing all the heat, or feel miserable because they weren't allowed to open the windows. A pure psychological effect of course, even with the best ventilation people still had the urge to open a window and felt bad if they couldn't.

throwaway984393• 5 years ago

I recently lived in a house with no external ventilation in one big room. Huuuge windows looking out onto a huge backyard full of trees and flowers. Yeah I missed being able to open the window and hear the birds. But then when lawnmowers started buzzing and dogs started barking, and later when winter hit, I was quite glad for the peace and quiet and no need to open them!

changoplatanero• 5 years ago

how do you ventilate without losing all the heat?

driverdan• 5 years ago

the technology is ripe to build houses that produce even more energy than they consume, but people simply don't want to live in them

It's called solar. Unless the house has a small footprint most can fit enough solar panels to more than cover their energy use.

spookthesunset2• 5 years ago

A pure psychological effect of course, even with the best ventilation people still had the urge to open a window and felt bad if they couldn't.

I wouldn't want to live in a house where I couldn't open the windows all the way. Near-perfect energy efficiency is something to strive for but there is something to be said for being able to open the window and get a nice breeze blowing through the house. Even if it isn't the most energy efficient it's okay with me.

spookthesunset2• 5 years ago

A pure psychological effect of course, even with the best ventilation people still had the urge to open a window and felt bad if they couldn't.

Even if it isn't the most energy efficient it's okay with me. I mean if we really wanted to get good energy efficiency we'd just remove all the windows completely. But we don't because we design building for the enjoyment of humans, not just for energy efficiency.

AtlasBarfed• 5 years ago

So with home solar panels and storage getting cheaper and cheaper and better and better, where is the optimization point of investing in better insulation vs just buying more solar panels?

Especially if the solar panels may produce profit on sunny mild days about 40-50% of the year if there is reverse metering and the like?

maxwell86• 5 years ago

Insulation beats solar panels. It’s not only much cheaper to get, but also to maintain.

The body heat of a family of 4 is enough to heat a well insulated house.

Solar panels are there to supply electricity for use. The last step of passive houses are zero-energy houses, which means that they don’t get electricity from the grid.

mariushn• 4 years ago

Salut! Could you please share more info / photos / tips, besides the sdac.ro link? How high is the elevation? What kind of heating do you use? How do you refresh the air? (opening the windows or heat recovery system) Thanks

dhruval2• 5 years ago

Reminds me of 'Earthship Houses' that are completely off grid, recycle their waste water to grow crops, are built using repurposed car tires and grow their own food.

There is a community in New Mexico https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgUkjbMhF18

And even some in Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAvY5JeMz9w&t=62s

35mm• 5 years ago

Yes! Any they typically make good use of passive + solar thermal management. For example automated window openings to draw heat through etc

masklinn3• 5 years ago

Also reminiscent of a Canadian (?) advocate from the late 20th century, can’t remember his name. Actually built a huge passive house with a large internal greenhouse and a small stream for air quality.

shlant• 5 years ago

that Earthship in Canada is owned by my best friends parents! It still get's pretty cold in the winter (Lethbridge winters are incredibly cold and windy) so it took some acclimatizing when they first moved in. I think they have improved it somewhat since then.

goodpoint5• 5 years ago

Earthship are very low density unfortunately.

Good at reducing the environmental and economical impact of the house itself but now you have to drive a car instead of living car-free in a walkable city.

dhruval2• 5 years ago

Good point. I wonder what the environmental impact is of high density housing in cities vs low density (earth houses).

I think it probably does make sense for rural communities.

Cd00d• 5 years ago

Ha, I volunteered to build Earthships in New Mexico in 1995 during my orientation week at college. Fascinating community.

Thanks for the reminder.

bawolff• 5 years ago

I'm kind of curious what weather range they are talking about.

As someone from Canada, i somehow don't think this would work over here in the -40 winter.

masklinn3• 5 years ago

Canada was actually one of the early study and proving grounds for passive houses, due to the oil shock (look up the Saskatchewan Conservation House).

Sadly much like most other such actions, they were quickly discarded once the shock receded, but the german Passivhaus Institut was actually founded on the basis of that study and model house.

dx0347• 5 years ago

I lived in a PassivHouse in Germany. Didn't need to heat if it was more than 4C outside (less if more people were at home). I never experienced -40C, but at -20C it worked fine. Probably the only time all heating had to run to some degree 24/7. I'm sure that -40C would've been fine as well.

In the end it all doesn't matter. You build the house to some standard and then design the heating system to be able to cover thermal loss for the expected temperature range. In Canada you'd probably just add twice as much heating as you would in most of Europe. But especially at those temperatures, very well insulated homes will save a ton of money.

The only part that kind of worked less well at very low temperatures was the heat exchanger for the ventilation system. It didn't run at full capacity if it was well below freezing. But I guess there are other systems out there which are designed for -40C as well.

timonoko• 5 years ago

Does not work at all. In Finland we have disastrous situation with pre-90's "Bottle"-houses with air-tight insulation. Not enough circulation and dangerous mildew blooms.

All this lower 50's German crap about heat pumps and heat exchanges does not make much sense. Once again. Not a surprise.

meerita• 5 years ago

Last year I rented a reformed old fabric and I cannot be more happy with. The building is really well done now and it's energy efficent. I usually turn on the heat for a couple of minutes and the flat stays warn for hours. The windows are really good not only to keep the heat but also letting light in and blocking 95% of the sounds.

pdamoc• 5 years ago

My favorite approach remains the Dome of Visions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bn2o-xyS6M

pkdpic• 5 years ago

Cool project and name. Ive always been curious if domes like this become problematic in hot weather though or if they have some dynamic that makes them beneficial then too. Not sure how to google that but maybe someone knows.

bythreads• 5 years ago

Checkout poroton, as a building material it is near impossible to beat - high insulation, low total cost, humidity seeps slowly thorugh the walls and termal mass is massive

PinguTS• 5 years ago

In Austria an architect build an office building completely without any heating at all [1]. And now after the first experiences he is doing it for clients as well [2]. It works.

[1] https://www.detail-online.com/article/house-without-heating-...

[2] https://www.world-architects.com/en/baumschlager-eberle-arch...

ZeroGravitas• 5 years ago

They mention that they avoid over sealing, for local climate reasons but an interesting technique/gadget for sealing the air barrier is to vapourize some caulk type stuff in the air and force air in through a fan. As the air escapes through small holes it fills them.

Apparently without this you need to be very careful while building, while this lets you go a little faster and sort it out after.

https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2013/05/15/a-shortcut-for-a...

There's also a recent development where just slapping on some solar panels can sometimes make more sense than extra insulation, in terms of cost and return.

ricardo813• 5 years ago

I'm in the UK which has one of the oldest/energy inefficient housing stocks in Europe.

After buying a house built in 1890 I've been made more aware how poor they can be. After replacing the old secondary glazed windows and replacing the old inefficient gas boiler, I'm moving onto replacing the front and back door, and insulating the suspended floor, walls and room in roof. The walls are solid whinstone about 600mm thick which I'd have expected to be a good insulator but in reality they're a thermal bridge.

For generation, I've reserved a spot in Rippleenergy's next co-op turbine [0]. I've been looking into PV/solar thermal/solar battery combinations as well as heat batteries. Sunamp's looks interesting [1] and phase change materials in general. Living in a high latitude (Scotland) the benefit in Winter is more marginal but I'd be happy with simply covering the cost and having peace of mind where the energy came from. PVT panels look interesting if not well-known/scarce.

There's so many parts to the answer it seems like energy advisors could be more of a thing in the same way financial advisors are plentiful.

[0] https://rippleenergy.com/

[1] https://sunamp.com/thermino-thermal-storage-for-domestic-hot...

KaiserPro6• 5 years ago

The next most effective thing to do is External wall insulation. However that'll mean that you'll loose the whinstone look. (unless you pay a _lot_ to get whinstone like shims put on after)

The alternative is to have internal wall insulation: https://www.insulationsuperstore.co.uk/product/vacutherm-vac...

This is as effective as ~150mm of rockwool, but only 20mm thick. So this can be stuck behind plaster/plasterboard.

but its not easy to work with, or widespread yet.

ricardo813• 5 years ago

Yes, it's one of the top recommendations (internal wall insulation) on my EPC and have had a survey. 60mm PIR boards would be used. Turns out I wouldn't have to sacrifice much space but would have to pay a bit extra replacing the cornices.

There are some regional grants in the UK that can cover a large portion of the amount. For me, it is £7.5K, with the quote I received at £9K. This would not have covered the kitchen or bathroom.

Going by EPC recommendations and numbers alone, I can reduce my energy requirement by about 40%.

lbriner4• 5 years ago

An easier solution is plasterboard already bonded to PIR or XPS. The XPS is cheaper and I don't think it will make a massive difference depending on all the other challenges like windows and doors. You can simply stick this to existing walls with adhesive foam and then dry-line or skim the boards afterwards.

To do it well, though, you will often need to cut out/remove any laminate flooring so the boards can meet the floor and they won't do anything about leakage between floors, which can be significant.

bainsfather• 5 years ago

I followed your link, but am confused and/or doubtful:

how do you replace 150mm of rockwool with 20mm of anything other than a good vacuum? It says that they are 'very low internal pressure' - but if it contains any kind of gas (which i presume it must do - air if nothing else) then the conductivity does not depend on pressure until the mean-free-path has increased to be > the width of the container.

Is this product real? What is it about the physics that I am not understanding?

And how do you maintain the 'very low internal pressure' over the decades that you will need it for?

Thanks.

Mvandenbergh5• 5 years ago

I work on energy systems modelling and how domestic thermal performance interfaces with that - the UK has not just "one of the oldest in Europe" it actually has the oldest in the world. Many European countries had a lot more post WWII construction so at least have cavity walls (even if in many cases not filled until later).

cjrp2• 5 years ago

My understanding was that cavities should actually not be filled, since they allow water to drain out. Is that incorrect?

KaiserPro6• 5 years ago

TLDR:

point one:

you need insulation _everywhere_, along with some thermal mass to make sure there is some inertia to keep temperature even. This means that putting a jacket around the outside of a brick/cement structure is generally better than putting it inside. You need to insulate under the floor.

External wall insulation is not overly expensive. Its about 50% more expensive than a standard silicon render (in the UK)

Point Two:

Windows and doors are normally the weak spot. Standard double glazing has a U value of about 2. Depending on the coating and the position, they can also let in up to 2kw/m2 of heat through solar gain.

You need ideally coated triple glazing, which if paired with the correct frames has a U value of about 0.8-1.1 The coating is to reflect solar gain. You will need sun shading so that in winter the sun comes streaming in, but in summer its shaded out by the small shades.

In the UK its possible to get triple glazing at about the same price as double. For us, the big companies quoted >15k for shitty double glazing, local company was ~10k, eventual installation price was 8k for triple. This included custom arched door/window, and a french door.

masklinn3• 5 years ago

Windows and doors are normally the weak spot. Standard double glazing has a U value of about 2. Depending on the coating and the position, they can also let in up to 2kw/m2 of heat through solar gain.

Also do be careful of thermal bridges and missing seals at and around the frame.

My current rental is relatively well insulated all in all, but one of the huge weakpoints is the stone sill of one of the east-facing windows, I don’t know what the builders fucked up but in winter it can literally serve as a fridge.

alkonaut5• 5 years ago

Standard double glazing

How is the code still allowing new construction with windows having U of 2 (such as double glazing)? A more restrictive code would reduce a country's CO2 footprint, companies would sell more expensive products like windows, and no one except the few constructing new homes would be economically impacted - and obviously only short term, while the economic gains are reaped by everyone. So how is this not politically easy to just...do?

KaiserPro6• 5 years ago

How is the code still allowing new construction with windows having U of 2 (such as double glazing)

its complex. but as I'm retrofitting the rules are different. The standards are here: https://great-home.co.uk/building-regulations-current-u-valu...

But the real kicker is that glazing should have bleeder vents in them, in some circumstances. Which is a pain in the arse. Most of my windows don't have them, but the two in the loft extension do.

Mvandenbergh5• 5 years ago

Effectively it isn't allowed since the whole building has to meet a minimum efficiency standard which would be impossible to meet with U=2 windows throughout.

My double glazed windows have a U value of 1.2 and typical for triple is 0.8 so the improvement isn't that big between good new double glazed and triple.

jwr3• 5 years ago

While this is at the extreme end of the spectrum, there is a much easier way to save lots of energy: just build modern well-insulated homes.

I lived in California and I was appalled at the monstrous energy waste: houses are generally made pretty much from cardboard. You need to cool them in summertime and heat them in wintertime, and the energy expenditure is enormous.

I now live in Poland and have recently built small homes that are similar in structure to the ones in CA: wooden frame, drywall inside. But the ones here have walls that are 25cm thick because of insulation (mineral wool) and use advanced modern membranes as well. Together, these things do wonders, and maintaining warmth in wintertime using a heat pump (AC) is easy and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

In other words, you can get 80% of the benefits with 20% of the effort — just design thicker walls with insulation and use modern materials.

jve2• 5 years ago

Don't forget to mention that insulating roof is just as important. Otherwise, heat will happily escape over your head.

jwr3• 5 years ago

Yes, I wasn't stating the obvious: you need to insulate the floor and roof as well. For example, reinforced concrete foundation slabs are usually placed over XPS foam boards here. There are many ways to do this, my point was that you don't have to go to extremes to get impressive benefits of modern insulation.

bogle3• 5 years ago

"About the only part of a Californian house you can't put your foot through is the front door." 'The Big Sleep', Raymond Chandler (1939).

Good to see nothing's changed!

jwr3• 5 years ago

Oh, this is so very true! In addition, said front door is protected by a flimsy deadbolt that sits in a dinky thin door frame. The whole thing breaks and opens with a kick and offers symbolic, rather than practical protection.

hyperbovine• 5 years ago

Of course nothing has changed, he’s talking about the exact same housing stock.

hansvm• 5 years ago

Echoing the sentiment, it cost significantly more for me to heat a studio to 65F in CA than to get a 2/1 up to 72F in ND (or rather, to maintain those temperatures).

Both units had electric baseboard heat and were top floor apartments, but the CA unit didn't have double pane windows, had enormous gaps at the doors and windows, and for all intents and purposes didn't have any insulation. If it was warmer than 0F or so outside the ND unit would have more than enough heat just from cooking. If it was colder than 50F or so the CA unit needed the heaters to actually be on.

raxxorrax• 5 years ago

I even prefer this to a complete passive house. To be honest I don't like the air from ventilation, although that probably depends on the system.

danans• 5 years ago

I lived in California and I was appalled at the monstrous energy waste: houses are generally made pretty much from cardboard. You need to cool them in summertime and heat them in wintertime,

This is the legacy of historical low energy prices coupled with a historically mild climate.

Now, both of those things are changing. Energy prices are rising because of global warming accelerated risks, and simultaneously the climate is getting hotter and dryer.

The result is that it can start making sense to build to a higher standard like passive house in CA - I just did and my HVAC energy usage dropped 75% and is now more comfortable.

However, there needs to be better code enforcement - i.e. air leakage for new homes should be closer to 2.0 ACH50, not the totally unenforced 5.0 ACH50 on the books today - and also better education of buyers so they can start demanding better built and more efficient homes.

closeparen• 5 years ago

Coming from a decidedly unsexy post-industrial Midwestern city, I was very surprised to learn that for all the wealth and splendor of California, most of the buildings here seem horribly impoverished.

londons_explore2• 5 years ago

I think a key issue is that generally the person designing a house isn't the same person who will be paying the energy bills in 30 years time.

Few people will pay a lot extra for a better insulated house.

The end result is that the cheapest insulation allowed by law is used rather than something that costs more today but saves a lot in the long run.

I wonder if a solution to this problem might take the form of "We'll sell you the house, and promise to pay half the energy bill for the next 50 years". Obviously there are issues with that... is there a better way to align incentives?

lbriner4• 5 years ago

I think the assumption is that with regulations, the government can force builders and buyers to accept the higher standards and the associated higher cost in return for the common-good.

alkonaut5• 5 years ago

I think a key issue is that generally the person designing a house isn't the same person who will be paying the energy bills in 30 years time.

Those who build homes must typically be planning on staying at least a few years in them though, say 10? Insulation is pretty cheap compared to running an AC in a poorly insulated home. Also it's not just a cost issue, it's more about comfort. Sleeping in a cool space without an AC blasting is worth something too.

The person designing the building codes though is the person responsible for the energy use and supply of the country, it's CO2 emissions and so on. So slowly getting more efficient building codes seems like it should be universal.

sgt• 5 years ago

South Africa here, it's not common to build energy efficient houses although it's gradually getting slightly better.

I'm busy changing all my windows to double glazed (single glazed is the norm, believe it or not) and proper insulation in above the ceiling.

Instead of freezing my ass off every winter it's now super pleasant, and it's cooler in summer. Such a non-brainer - I just don't understand why people don't do this more.

morsch• 5 years ago

The article shows off snazzy housing for wealthy people, but as far as I know all new housing finished in the EU as of 2021 is supposed to be built to these standards. So it's not restricted to architecture magazine, it's just regular houses.

See e.g. https://www.igbc.ie/nzeb/

jve2• 5 years ago

Actually, article complains that Building Code is pretty low standard in NZ and that non-wealthy suffers as they live in not-so-well insulated houses.

But speaking from northern EU country - yeah, I don't see anyone here building non-insulated houses.

rsynnott4• 5 years ago

nZEB isn't quite the same thing as a passive house; a well-built passive house would qualify as an nZEB, but you could for instance, build an nZEB that had reasonably high thermal losses (thus not a passive house) which it compensates for with loads of solar panels.

That said, in practice most nZEBs probably will be passive houses or close; it's probably the most practical way to meet the requirements in most cases.

lbriner4• 5 years ago

I think this is one of those things where people generally agree that better insulation and lower energy costs is a good thing but who pays for it?

In the UK, there is a constant demand for "affordable housing", which is caused by governments not controlling the housing market from either foreign investors or also people using the housing bubble to buy up loads of properties over time forcing others to rent.

Bearing in mind how much profit a lot of home builders make, increasing the regulations is likely to add at least £20K to a basic house, significantly more if you include mechanical ventilation, triple-glazed windows and heat pumps (perhaps +£50K), which is some cases will be 50%+ of the original cost!

Another major problem is the quality of building in the UK, mainly driven by a lack of tradespeople, and simply not having the skills to install to the quality levels required by thermally efficient houses like installing a membrane with zero holes in it, using the correct tapes, designing, installing and maintaining heat pumpes and various other things.

I think these challenges will get better over time but that is probably why governments aren't keen to make large improvements in energy-efficiency regulations.

bogle3• 5 years ago

I think these challenges will get better over time but that is probably why governments aren't keen to make large improvements in energy-efficiency regulations.

This is probably true but it's still backwards. The state should want to improve the affordability of housing and should consult with industry on which measures can be introduced but ultimately the state must introduce the new regulations to help drive the market in the direction of continuous improvements to the housing stock's long-term affordability. I think if they shirk this then they simply aren't doing the job properly.

Mvandenbergh5• 5 years ago

Bearing in mind how much profit a lot of home builders make, increasing the regulations is likely to add at least £20K to a basic house, significantly more if you include mechanical ventilation, triple-glazed windows and heat pumps (perhaps +£50K), which is some cases will be 50%+ of the original cost!

The sales price of houses in the UK (and elsewhere) is driven by the market and there is a low amount of released, buildable land and a lot of demand in the Southeast. The land value (a large component of the value) is not actually set in an independent market but is based on the expected sales price minus construction costs and development costs. Therefore increasing the built cost of properties will decrease the value of land likely to receive planning permission without affecting purchase price by much.

The marginal cost of thicker walls is also very low (especially compared to retrofit costs) so the impact on construction cost is nothing like £50k.

thebiss• 5 years ago

Another major problem is the quality of building in the UK, mainly driven by a lack of tradespeople, and simply not having the skills to install to the quality levels required by thermally efficient houses like installing a membrane with zero holes in it, using the correct tapes, designing, installing and maintaining heat pumpes and various other things.

It's an incentive and delegation problem. I'm in the US, and have been through three large renovations to family homes, and the trades I've worked were (nearly) all HIGHLY skilled, but had zero incentive to exceed energy efficiency goals required by code. The small business contractor needs to complete your project, get paid, and move on to the next. The best ones don't have any extra time - they're prospecting clients and building estimates for the next big project.

jayflux• 5 years ago

Another major problem is the quality of building in the UK, mainly driven by a lack of tradespeople, and simply not having the skills to install to the quality levels required by thermally efficient houses like installing a membrane with zero holes in it, using the correct tapes, designing, installing and maintaining heat pumpes and various other things.

I agree with the sibling comment this is an incentive problem rather than a skill problem. If house builders can cut corners they will. If they can sell a house for the same cost without the fancy new insulation gear they will.

This is why your bit about regulation is needed because otherwise the things you list won’t happen. Home chargers are a good example which the govt deemed necessary for new builds, the skill will be there for that and without the regulation I’m not sure most builders would have bothered, leaving people to retrofit one further down the line paying a higher cost. The skills for heat pumps will organically grow as regulation kicks in too.

why governments aren't keen to make large improvements in energy-efficiency regulations.

The govt have been consulting with various business and institutions on future building standards you can view their response here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-future-build.... But from it we've already had EV charging point requirements, ban on gas boilers, new homes in England will have to produce around 30% less carbon emissions, plus raising the standard for insulation.

tonyedgecombe• 5 years ago

Interestingly the previous Labour government had raised the standards for insulation but one of the first things Cameron did was abandon that legislation. This stuff is so frustrating.

beAbU• 5 years ago

Location and climate are very big factors when it comes to home insulation.

The South African Highveld for example has an extremely mild climate.

My house has no insulation in the ceilings, single pane windows, double brick walls with no insulation and air vents all over the place to the outside.

The house was built in the 70s I think, using construction methods appropriate for that time. So ot very modern.

I have no climate control in my house. And I don't need any. At the moment I'm considering some ceiling insulation, because in the middle of summer things can get toasty in the evening when the hot roof radiates back into the cool house.

alkonaut5• 5 years ago

Our designs combine generous ventilation with high insulation (140mm-thick wall framing combined with R4 wall insulation in the North Island – far above the Building Code requirements)

NZ North Island is pretty extreme in its non-extremeness. It's near perfect for building homes that don't need excessive heating and cooling. From a global perspective, 140mm insulated framing is nothing. In any colder climate (such as the nordics) or hotter climate (such as the south US or southern Europe) a comfortable well-insulated wooden frame home needs at least 300mm insulation. That's also the code in e.g. Sweden.

netjiro2• 5 years ago

Some guidelines for better, healthier, low energy, low cost house construction:

Understand basic physics.

Avoid the architecture-of-the-week construction trends.

Set your targets: Size vs cost? How long do you expect to live there? Price of energy vs better insulation? Maintenance: type, frequency, amount, cost? How important is it for you to reduce the environmental impact? Start small and expand later, or start big and later rent out part of the house?

Stay open minded about the solutions and designs. This makes a huge difference. The building codes and municipal restrictions are often the most limiting factors on how "good" a house you can build. Don't add _unnecessary_ restrictions on top of that. Look around at different solutions, not just what the local construction companies offer. Travel and see how things are solved in other countries.

Use simple construction methods and design. Reduce the number of construction tasks necessary, and make each task simple. A significant real world problem with normal passivhaus construction is that while designed well, they are often very complex to actually build, and small mistakes by the construction crew can have a large impact on the energy requirements as well as cause health hazards.

Well insulated windows, walls, floor and ceiling also drastically improve the comfort feeling of the house, not just the energy bill. When done right and coupled with properly designed ventilation they also improve the health aspects of the indoor environment.

Many low energy houses built today require that the indoor air is kept very dry when the temperature difference between inside and outside increases. This has a lot of negative health effects. By choosing different insulation and interior materials they can be made to allow high indoor humidity. Your lungs, throat, nose, eyes and skin will thank you. Internal humidity around 50-60% also reduces air transmission of many viruses.

Thermal mass is mentioned in some other posts here. Make sure to place it inside the insulation layer, not on the outside. Water and stone have similar high volumetric specific heat capacity. By using water circuits and storage, the mass can be moved out of the way, and often coupled to very efficient heating/cooling systems.

We have developed a construction toolbox for houses and industrial buildings with very low total life cycle CO2 footprint, suitable for climates down to around 0C annual average temperature (northern Scandinavia, around the polar circle). They are fast and cheap to build and provide superb internal environment. If you're interested in more info I'm happy to share. You can ping us at StoneWoodGreyBeard at gmail.

nikanj• 5 years ago

The English have been building homes with virtually no heating since forever

markvdb5• 5 years ago

If you have a large enough plot, consider building a home out of jumbo straw bales. Super insulating, easy and fast to build, cheap and eco.

naikrovek• 5 years ago

In 1989 my grandparents built a home with 12" thick walls (6" was normal at the time, in the area) and carefully vapor-sealed the entire house, taking extra special care to avoid holes which would let air move through the house in an unplanned way.

They paid extra (a lot extra) for the highest insulation value available for the fiberglass rolls they installed in the outside walls. They double-stacked the insulation, as well, which is why they built the walls so thick.

They poured the basement foundation on top of layers of foam insulation, and used piers (I don't know what they're called) down to the bedrock for structural integrity; the majority of the outside of basement floor was in contact only with insulation. Only 16-20 8" columns went through the insulation down to bedrock and could be good conduits for heat to the earth. All of the walls in the basement were double insulated from the earth they held back.

That house was heated entirely by the heat that the water heater released through its insulation. Once or twice a year they would light a candle on the dining room table, to bring the heat back up if it ever got below what they felt was comfortable. Most days they had windows cracked open on opposite sides of the house in the middle of winter because it got too hot even with the furnace turned off entirely. It was never less than 75F in that house, even when it was -15F outside. I spent months on end in that house, just wondering when the furnace would come on. It never did. Not once while they lived there was the furnace ever needed. They lived in Missouri, US.

Years later my grandfather realized that he had left the petcock which allowed hot water to circulate to the radiator over which air was blown and heated to circulate heat throughout the house closed for over a decade -- since the house was built. "I knew I wouldn't need this damn furnace. Building code requires it, and I fought that but lost."

If you're careful, thoughtful, and determined, you can make a little bit of heat go a very long way. They were tired of paying heating bills. They paid to get rid of them, but they were rid of them.

WkndTriathlete• 5 years ago

In 1989 my grandparents built a home ... and carefully vapor-sealed the entire house

In the upper Midwest there were a number of homes built this way in the 80s/90s. 10-15 years later they all had black mold (nasty health hazard) growing in the walls because moisture couldn't escape from the house. All homes are now required to have air-to-air heat exchangers for this reason.

Reichhardt• 5 years ago

Its not moisture, its general ventilation. All houses should have formal ventilation systems to exhaust CO2 and control humidity secondarily.

squigg• 5 years ago

I met the founder(s) of ArchiPro at a cloud event in Wellington in either 2013 or 2014 - it is wonderful to see their idea not only be sustained but thrive, bravo!

Acen• 5 years ago

Milot and Britt's vision for having an impact on the building industry is going to take a lot of work, but they're one of the few people that seem to have unlimited drive for it. - I worked as a dev for ArchiPro from March 20 - December 21

poseva11• 5 years ago

I want to also to highlight the importance of the building airtightness (Air Changes per Hour) on the energy consumption needed for heating.

I saw an example at some point in one of PassivHaus presentation and it was like this:

0.3 ACH -> 1.74 kWh/m2year (for a 100 sqm house means, 174 kwh per year for heating)

0.6 ACH -> 3.49 kWh/m2year (PassivHaus limit)

1.0 ACH -> 5.81 kWh/m2year

1.5 ACH -> 8.72 kWh/m2year (Low energy house limit)

4.5 ACH -> 26.5 kWh/m2*year (typical house)

This is for the same house with the same insulation. Of course you cannot achieve this kind of airtightness without careful planning and using a lot of self-adhesive tape (SIGA, ROTHOBLASS and other manufactures that can guarantee its effectiveness up to 50 years)

dahfizz• 5 years ago

Even in places known for their extreme weather conditions – such as ‘hot ‘n’ cold’ Otago, wind-prone Wellington and sweaty Auckland – high-performance homes will stay comfortable and fresh all the year round.

All these places stay above 45F and below 80F. This is anything but extreme weather. You don't need any sort of special "high performance" house for this kind of temperate climate.

blackearl• 5 years ago

Living in a true hot n cold New England USA makes me jealous that anyone would consider this extreme. It's sweater n t-shirt weather. I consider hot n cold being 100F in the summer and 0F in the winter.

roamerz• 5 years ago

In Oregon the new building code mandates that all air ducts and air handlers be located in conditioned space. Really good common sense regulation imho.

hourislate3• 5 years ago

I've been touting the benefits of Spray Foam Insulation for years. It is actually incredible how much money you can save on HVAC every year. Your Heating and Cooling equipment can be halved in size and your living space is draft free and incredibly comfortable. Mate this with geothermal and your utility bills to heat and cool are equivalent to someones Starbucks habit (maybe less). If the North American building code was upgraded to a decent performance level (spray foam, triple pane windows, etc), we could probably get away with not having to build another power plant for decades.

turtlebits2• 5 years ago

Spray foam is very expensive and is not sustainable. Mineral wool/rockwool is also fairly popular but pricey as well.

Also, it's not just adding insulation. Air tightness is hard problem to address for existing houses.

hourislate3• 5 years ago

Spray foam pays for itself, so it's basically free in the long run. Interesting enough people don't bat an eye when someone quotes them 20-30 k for a new Kitchen but if you quote someone 20-30 k to insulate their entire house they look at you like you killed their mother and sister.

The average home has 2000 ft of linear cracks. Everything from poorly sealed doors, windows, and envelope. It's like the equivalent of keeping your front and back door open all year around. So even after spray foaming there is some leakage (blown door test).

Really, Spray foam isn't that expensive, you should be paying about $3 -$4 a sq/ft at around a R-21 which is cheaper than most tile or carpet installations.

https://huntsmanbuildingsolutions.com/en-US/

If I were building a house I would probably go with ICF forms all the way up and Spray Foam the attic and basement floor (under the concrete floor). If I were renovating, I would Spray Foam and try to make the job large enough to cover the contractors minimum charge. Even a couple of rooms can really help the utility bills.

shalmanese• 5 years ago

People fail to appreciate how much leveraged financing affects the design of houses. If you pay 100% for a house and you decide to build something only you appreciate using 10% of your budget, you will lose 10% of your investment when selling the house. If you put down 20% and have the bank finance 80%, then the same decision will wipe out 50% of your investment. This means for financed houses, "resale value" becomes the preeminent decision affecting the design of a house.

In Economics, this is known as a "Keynesian Beauty Contest" [1] where your job is to predict what everyone else predicts will be the most popular option and Keynesian Beauty Contests can get weird.

eg: It's quite possible that you might personally hate granite countertops but still feel the need to put a granite countertop in your home because you believe it will help the resale value of your home. It's quite possible for everyone in a community to all hate granite countertops but for everyone to still put granite countertops in their home because they believe everyone else loves granite countertops. It's quite possible for everyone in a community to hate granite countertops and to know that everyone else hates granite countertops and still make the economically rational decision to put a granite countertop in their house to help with the resale value.

A lot of "economically irrational" housing decisions are driven by this core transformation via Mortgage Backed Securities of a house from a consumption based purchase of a place to enjoy living into an investment asset that dominates most people's finances.

It's only in houses built for the independently wealthy that don't really care about the future resale value of their houses that a lot of the good building science expertise still lies. That's why, paradoxically, in countries much poorer than the US/UK/Aus/NZ, you see much better building quality because their finance systems are also less developed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest

gruez• 5 years ago

That's why, paradoxically, in countries much poorer than the US/UK/Aus/NZ, you see much better building quality because their finance systems are also less developed.

source? China isn't well known for their well built buildings for example.

oldsecondhand2• 5 years ago

I can't give you hard stats, but in Hungary in the 80s (i.e. socialist times) people were building their own houses in the villages (i.e. with the help from extended family only hiring tradesman when you don't have that trade in family) so there was little reason to cut corners. It also avoided the cookie cutter look of American suburbs. These are brick houses, so they're quite sturdy, and could be modernized by adding external insulation. Most of these houses were built with double glazed windows to begin with, so I was pretty surprised that in Britain or Spain it isn't default.

stakkur• 5 years ago

You mean like Earthships, a modern idea decades old? https://www.earthshipglobal.com/

What I like about Earthships is they attempt a wholistic answer to the gnarly nexus of housing access, resource use, and self-sufficiency, and do it in a simple, beautiful way.

The ideas and methods already exist; we don't need architect-designed glass/steel boxes or exotic manufacturing techniques and materials.

johndhi2• 5 years ago

Any tips for me? I live in Northern California in a house that (1) has an empty space below it, (2) single-pane windows, (3) an inefficient fireplace with no steel stove, (4) a big, cavernous room with high, un-insulated ceilings on one half of the house.

Obviously we could spend a zillion dollars to insulate everything and fix all of the problems I identified above (and probably more), but what is critical?

One thing we started with is putting a thermal curtain between the big, drafty room and the rest of the house so that the thermometer doesn't get triggered by the big room sucking the hot air out of the rest of the house.

poseva11• 5 years ago

1. I would start by lowering the ceiling and insulating it. For ceiling if you insulate it using mineral wool, or glass wool... the vapor barrier [0] is critical and must be placed continuously on the warm part. Also this membrane (preferably containing aluminum so that you get back some of the heat) must be glued to the walls using special glue [1]

2. I would change the windows, with at least triple pane. The windows must be mounted correctly (see RAL montage) and also must be placed aligned with the outside face of the wall.

3. I would take out the floor, and do hydronic underfloor heating with EPS150 or XPS as insulation substrate.

[0] https://www.rothoblaas.com/products/airtightness-and-waterpr...

[1] https://www.rothoblaas.com/products/airtightness-and-waterpr...

johndhi2• 5 years ago

Thank you!

what price do you think we're looking at for each of these? lowering the ceiling is a bit of a bummer from a looks perspective. underfloor heating sounds wonderful.

chipsa2• 5 years ago

The bigger the room, the higher the ceiling has to be to feel comfortable. I'd still insulate the ceiling of the big room, but I wouldn't necessarily lower it. Instead, put in a ceiling fan so that the air doesn't stratify. Fireplace isn't critical unless you're actually using it for heating.

dakna• 5 years ago

While I certainly dream of building a true passive house, it is much more reasonable to follow the Pretty Good House approach, in it's current 2.0 version described here: https://www.prettygoodhouse.org/pgh-20

As with most engineering efforts, the last 20% of optimization tend to be costly. But covering the basics (mainly around insulation and air-sealing) has a huge impact already without increasing upfront costs by the same ratio.

Also the wall/roof assembly needs to match the climate for the region, mainly because of the dew point and how it relates to temperature and moisture differences between inside/outside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point

elliottkember• 5 years ago

If you are interested in this, you may like The Zen Of Passive Solar Heating: http://www.iedu.com/Solar/Panels/ which is one of my favourite online project logs.

dghughes• 5 years ago

I really think many people don't pay enough attention to insulating homes they think solar panels, heat pumps etc.. But don't think of why the house is too hot or too cold. It's all just moving energy around cold is absence of heat but you hear of people say "cold is coming in" really it's heat escaping.

I'm going to try my hand at insulation my parent's home. Dad died last year he built the house and everything in it and on it. He was sick for 15 years so maintenance was difficult.

I'm looking at Rockwool for the attic most heat is lost through the roof. The pull down stairs are terrible for heat loss. Heat bridging is also what I want to tackle too I'll cover joists perpendicularly.

Stuffing the attic with insulation is easier than solar or a heat pump. For now.

How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

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