Shelter/ Passive Houses
 

A post by a friend made here Survival Resources News Daily
Interesting stuff.

Nice post and good info. It sounds like this should have been common sense a long time ago. I guess low fuel prices really had people satisfied though. I know I look forward to blowing the insulation into my attic and having a much more comfortable house and lower heating bill soon!

That is awesome. I wish my house was made that way. I don't know about the US, but why is it here in Canada, whenever they make newer homes that are suppose to be "better" they are still cutting corners and doing the minimum they need to do instead of building really well made homes like in the article. It's like if you want anything good, you have to learn about it and do it yourself.

Have seen such a house once on TV. Their only heating system is human heat :thumbup:
The problem is when it is too cold outside, they have to invite people to heat the house.

This reminds me a French commercial (for natural gas company) :
Denis.

I'm having a hard time finding out what "stuffiness" really is in qualitative and preferably quantified terms. What exactly leads to that feeling and how much of whatever can the air have before we notice?

Looks like the US is getting on board with this as well. I just got this link from larryrose. Thanks Larry.

Super-efficient. Cost effective. Carbon-neutrality within reach. Today.

So, are there things we can do to our homes to make them more like this? Or does the house have to be built from the ground up to use all the techniques?

My understanding is you have to plan and build a "Passive House" from the ground up. A Passive House is super-insulated on all sides and air-tight with air-exchangers which could be difficult to retro-fit into an existing structure. From conversations with an architect friend and an insulation contractor the "traditional" approach to construction in the U.S. treats insulation as an afterthought.

I'm still working on improving my own home, but I doubt I can make it as efficient as a "Passive House". :(

Here is the website of a German architect located in New Mexico who is designing Passive Houses Zero Energy, Carbon Neutral: The Passive House Standard

Tim

I'm sure you could convert a conventional house to a passive house, but it would include basically tearing off every outer wall in the place to add more insulation. Say an average 2x4 wall is filled with fiberglass. That is R-11 per ColoradoENERGY.org - R-Value Table. Not even remotely close to what it should be with a passive house (R40+). Even with 2x6 construction it doesn't get that much better as it would only be about R16.5. You'd literally need to thicken your walls, or use a better R-value insulating material. Fiberglass is about R3.5 per inch. Polyurethane which is what I believe is the blown in foam is R6.5 per inch (and seals the house air tight). Even using that good stuff, you'd need 2x6 construction and fill it completely full to get close to R40.

What they did on my house which is old real 2x4 construction is add a layer of polystyrene to the outside of the wall between it and the house wrap and siding. I'm not sure how thick it is unfortunately, but thats another R2 to R5. If I ripped out the lathe and plaster and redid the walls ever, I'd think about throwing up 1 to 2 inches of polyiso insulation on the outside wall before putting up drywall. This would add another R7.2 to R14.5 to the wall and cover up some of the woods thermal bridging, but it would also make the room a bit smaller. In my case, I'd be willing to do that. If I did all that, my walls would still fall quite short of R40 unfortunately. It would probably put me somewhere around R26-33, but a heck of a lot better than my current ~R16.

I just can't get this build idea out of my head lately. Darin and I looked up some more info on these houses and their energy efficiency is simply amazing. Here are some quotes he dug up on a 1400ish square foot house in Illinois. Heat and water heat are all electric. Amazing results.

"For most of the
year, the house requires no supplemental heat at all. The
1,000-watt (3,141 Btu/h) electric heating element is integrated
with the HRV. Last January, her electric bill (for all
household uses, including heat) totaled only $35 (340
kWh)... the month included two
cloudy weeks and temperatures as low as -10°F."

"Annual electricity consumption for heating was 1,065 kWh for the twelve
month period between February 2005 and February 2006."

If I had the cash I'd sell my house and build one of these. That would rule. It would be awesome to build my house from scratch the way I want it built instead of some half baked cookie cutter house that they build now.

I think it would be better to find good ways to retrofit a house. Obviously new construction will be most efficient and easiest, but there is already a house there, why not just make it efficient?

Not necessarily - you just add another layer of wall to the outside (or inside - but that's probaby harder, and reduces your liveable area).

The Wikipedia page on superinsulation has a section on retrofitting:

Superinsulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I just can't get over the fact that that Illinois demo home has a 1000 watt heater for 1400+ square feet! And they don't even need it most of the time.

While that's all good, and I'd love to do that, adding inches to the outside of my house isn't really possible since I only have so much room on either side of my house before it becomes my neighbors yard...and I need to be able to walk around my house. I think there also may be some building restrictions needing a certain amoung of space. Plus, the front of the house would look really weird if I added size to it. :)

And if I added it inside, I'd lose a lot of living space. My kids rooms are already kind of small...this would make them really small. Not to mention my garage would shrink too since it's attached.

I'm not saying it's not completely possible, but this would cost a lot more money to do then I'd really want. I'd have to do some kind of combination of inside and outside expanding.

Passivehouse and retrofits
 

First, I came across this site where the architects are taking a holistic, systen engineering approach and are selling contemporary LEEDS certified houses with NO Premium cost over the other houses in the neighborhood:
100K House - building an affordable modern & green (LEED) home

Further, they are applying the same methodology to tackle the PassiveHouse standard:
The Philadelphia Passive Project - 100k and the Passive House Standard | 100K House Blog

As TimJFowler said, insulation, indoor air quality and the like are afterthoughts in traditional home building, so retrofits run into the cost of polishing a turd. If you goal is to have a shiny ball, you should start with a billiard ball, not a turd. Ex: by incorporating SIP's to make the new home shell, you get both lower cost because they cut down on labor cost and eliminate framing. The result is High R value, no thermal bridging, and a tight envelope.

As a person who has done extensive thermal work to their house, see my posts here (larryrose11)
Attic insulation - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com
I have sealed my attic (attic penetrations, all wall headers), added seals to the attic hatch, added loads of cellulose, (But not enough!!), and pollyiso insulation blocks at the eaves, polyurethane foam in the wall stud cavity with 1 inch pollyiso board over that, and basement joist pockets (cavity's made by floor joists and cement basement walls) and new windows (U=0.28) throughout. the list goes on. It is a pain to polish a turd. It is not realistic to achieve passiveness as a retrofit. you could not really address the problem of foundation insulation. That being said, the work I have done here have made HUGE differences in the utility bills, Indoor air quality and home comfort. Since the exterior remodel where all the polyurethane foam went in, there has been a dramatic decrease in sickness in the family, and a 17% decrease in heating energy use (when normalizes by heating degree days) despite adding 2 additional windows and a new door wall. A big increase in gas costs here means my bills weren't a low as I calculated in my post on ecomodder.

Bang for the buck. The attic is where you get the most cost effective place for your money. Seal theattic and and go for R50-60. 60/3.5=17.14 inches of ceulose. It may sound li9ke overkill, but it is not. Beyond that, If you are going to remodel the outside of your house, I would recommended the full tear off and at least some polyurethane form in the wall cavity's eaves, and basement. Big difference in home tightness there. Adding cellulose over that would probably be fine, but put foam decking, 1+ inch of R6.5 board, over the studs before the new cladding. Last but not least are windows. I'm not sure energystar standards are enough for cold climates.

Larry, how come it decreased sickness in the house? Just curious.

And do you happen to have pictures of what you did? I'd love to see them. I'm not quiet understanding everything you're saying because I don't always know all the home reno lingo. What would you recommend sealing things with in the attic? I have blown insulation in there now, but I'm going to go up there in spring and make sure nothing is leaking. So I'm going to seal up all the lights and stuff. Would you use the spray foam or caulking for that?

Where is the wall's cavity eaves? Is that gotten to from the attic or is that only accessible if you tear off the outside walls of your house like you did? Anyway, any info, pics, etc... would be helpful as I'd like to do something similar to what you're doing.

Also I was wondering, if you were to seal the light fixtures in your attic, what do you do if you ever want to change those fixtures? I want to put in ceiling fans and replace the lights in a couple of parts of my house. Thanks.

We had mildew problems from condensation, around cold air leaks. This resulted in a low levil sickness and frequent colds for most of the winter. The foam in the walls sealed everything up and insulated it all. The air now comes in 1 spot in the utility room, a 6 inch tube with a passive barometric operated mark up vent.

see attached pics. The last you can see the new windows, and the 1 inch foasm decking I had put over the frame to eliminate thermal bridging.

Remember, the goal is to make an air tight seal between the living space and the non-living space. Seal up all the wall headers in the attic: The tops of all the walls. seal it with spray foam, or GreatStuff foam. As for the recessed lights, make boxes out of foam board sealed up with foam. make sure that the boxes have about 2-3cm of clearance on each side of the fixture. Push the foam box over the recessed fixture, and attache it to the attic floor, sealing it in place with spray foam. ALSO, make sure that the attic hatch door is also sealed. Reienforce the attic dooe with wood (2*4's?) and use EPDM stick on window seal strips to make the seal, similar to a front door.

In the pic - baffels_installed.JPG, the area labeled "Cavity to be filled with spray foam." you cabn see the foam baffels I installed awaiting thew foam contractor. The old tar board decking anf old roof flashing is still in place. I replaced the flashing with a ventilated drip edge:
Roof Ventilation and Drip Edge System
When I was in the attic last, I installed 5 inch thick foam plugs in the eves, where the cellulose insulation is insufficient. See attached diagram, I could see daylight in the air passages.

Wow, thanks for this Larry. I see I've got quite a bit to do when I go up in my attic this spring. Take me a shovel up there and move some cellulose around so I can get to everything.

I get mildew and possibly mold around the windowsill in my house. I'm going to have to take off all the frame and spray foam the window too. Not to mention caulk it from the outside. I better start making a list of what i want to do and in what order. Once I change the lights to ceiling fans I'll go up there and start working on the cieling. I may have more questions for you as time goes on. :) Thanks again.

Higgy,
do you have a basement? Sealing up where the house sits on the foundation makes a big difference. It made a 7 deg (F) difference alone in my basement.

Dont forget to seal up your ducts, or at least the ones you can get to.
Read here:
Air Seal and Insulate with ENERGY STAR : ENERGY STAR

Yup, already on it. I've got the main duct sealed, I'm just working on all the branches now. I'm also looking for a place up here that sells insulation for the ducts. I've found some inulation, but the stuff I'm looking for has the inuslation on one side and the metalic shell around the outer.

My perimeter walls are insulated and finished...but I don't have any rooms or anything...the rest is all open...and no drop ceiling yet either. I'm just planning out the basemenet now. The perimeter wall was done before I bought the house.

Nobody is gonna ooh and ahh over a super high efficiency ERV or notice ultra efficient fenestration that might cost 5x as much as normal windows... well except us. :thumbup:

AC Hacker posted these links in another thread and I wanted to get them into this one for future reference.

Thermal Bridges - how to avoid them

Passivhaus Institut

I was reading my latest Shell Busey HouseSmart email, and saw he had an article on a passive house in Canada. He also linked to another passive house website. I haven't taken time to look through it yet, but the more info the better.

APG - Austrian Passive House Group (Passivhaus)

Local-Sourced Passive House in Wales
 

Here's an interesting page from UK about a very challenging Passive House project in Wales.


I found this article very interesting because a lot of the thinking (not always technical) that went into the project is on display in this interview.

Of particular interest is the very keen attention given to CO2 minimization, and local-sourcing of materials which is in line with CO2 reduction but also the training and encouragement of local labor and crafters to become involved, so it really looks like a triple-win to me.

It also got me thinking about the real cost of electricity, since such a large part of it is lost in transmission, and the coal fired power plants where it originates, and their huge contribution to CO2, and damaging emissions, and permanent damage to the environment in mining.

Similar thinking can be carried out about the true cost (real harm) of any non-renewable fuel.

So the initiatives that will drastically reduce our energy use are so valuable to us, in ways that are not s simple to calculate.

-AC_Hacker

It's nice when a company thinks about the energy needed to make the insulation and other parts. The diagram is interesting as well.

Less than 10%.

I'm a big wind power advocate, but you won't see me putting up a windmill. Due to economies of scale, centralization of power generation makes sense.

The vast majority of the life cycle pollution of an automobile comes from its operation, not its manufacture. I strongly suspect the same is true for conventional houses. Perhaps not so for Passivhäuser, where the carbon footprint of heating and cooling the house is vanishingly small. However: the reason these houses are not more common is the cost of building one. Anything that can be done to reduce the cost, e.g. trucking in Passivhaus windows from Germany to Wales, or using virgin materials if they're cheaper than recycled, is a step in the right direction, as it will result in better adoption of Passivhaus construction.

-AC_Hacker

Conclusion: The US has the equivalent of more than 140 cities the size of New York.

Market externalities drive down efficiency overall. An insistence on buying locally reduces the number of business competing for your patronage, and it causes some companies to do open up shop in the wrong locations. An extreme example is agriculture. If strawberries grow 50% better in California than in Buffalo, then Buffalo should import strawberries and perhaps export cheese. In a less extreme example, if there is already a massive fiberglass plant in Leeds, with millions spent on high efficiency, high output tooling, why open up a smaller, less efficient one in Cardiff?

changing old home to passive
 

I live in an old house build in early 50s and was wondering with a LIMITED budget how to start a change over into a passive style. What got me started was the fact that it is due for a new furnace and had a coversation with a friend about passive style homes. Do not have a clue if I need to start with a new insulation on home etc.

Hello Mary, welcome to the site.

Exsulating seems to be the easiest method to drastically reducing energy consumption. If I had to guess it might also be the cheapest. I haven't compared. It basically involves taking off all of your siding and adding about 4" of foamboard insulation to the exterior of the house, and then residing it. This not only adds R20 to R26 without any thermal bridging, but it also ensures the house is sealed up pretty well. Thermal bridging and air sealing are both major factors in passive house design.