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MN Renovator · 03-28-12, 07:09 PM

I just read this as it was linked somewhere from the link you just provided:
"In fact, they have a limit for the heating load that a Passive House must be below: 4,750 Btu per square foot per year. A 2000 square foot house, then, would need to have a heating load less than 9.5 million Btu per year, which could be met by a 1500 Watt blow dryer running for 77 days. By contrast, a typical furnace with an output capacity of 60,000 Btu per hour would run only 158 hours, or less than a week. Those numbers for heating include the heat that comes from the Sun (solar gain through the windows), appliances, and the people in the house."
From here: Passive House Appeals to Home Energy Raters

My furnace outputs 57,000 BTU per year and my house is over 2000 sq ft and my furnace ran 124 hours this entire winter. To be fair, I didn't keep my house at 72 degrees, or even 60 degrees and this winter was a mild winter but I figured the passive standard would require less heat than this. It's strange to think that this winters usage essentially fell into a passive amount when my house uses 5 times the energy of what I think a passive house using my own personal standards would use(not accounting for building size).

03-28-12, 07:09 PM	#40
MN Renovator Less usage=Cheaper bills Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 939 Thanks: 41 Thanked 116 Times in 90 Posts	I just read this as it was linked somewhere from the link you just provided: "In fact, they have a limit for the heating load that a Passive House must be below: 4,750 Btu per square foot per year. A 2000 square foot house, then, would need to have a heating load less than 9.5 million Btu per year, which could be met by a 1500 Watt blow dryer running for 77 days. By contrast, a typical furnace with an output capacity of 60,000 Btu per hour would run only 158 hours, or less than a week. Those numbers for heating include the heat that comes from the Sun (solar gain through the windows), appliances, and the people in the house." From here: Passive House Appeals to Home Energy Raters My furnace outputs 57,000 BTU per year and my house is over 2000 sq ft and my furnace ran 124 hours this entire winter. To be fair, I didn't keep my house at 72 degrees, or even 60 degrees and this winter was a mild winter but I figured the passive standard would require less heat than this. It's strange to think that this winters usage essentially fell into a passive amount when my house uses 5 times the energy of what I think a passive house using my own personal standards would use(not accounting for building size).