The 'Passive Housing' Trend is Booming (yahoo.com) 141
The Washington Post reports that a former Etsy CEO remodeled their home into what's known as a passive house. It's "designed to be as energy efficient as possible, typically with top-notch insulation and a perfect seal that prevents outside air from penetrating the home; air flows in and out through filtration and exhaust systems only."
Their benefits include protection from pollution and pollen, noise insulation and a stable indoor temperature that minimizes energy needs. That translates to long-term savings on heating and cooling.
While the concept has been around for about 50 years, experts say that the United States is on the cusp of a passive house boom, driven by lowered costs, state-level energy code changes and a general greater awareness of — and desire for — more sustainable housing... Massachusetts — which alongside New York and Pennsylvania is one of the leading states in passive house adoption — has 272 passive house projects underway thanks to an incentive program, says Zack Semke [the director of the Passive House Accelerator, a group of industry professionals who aim to spread lessons in passive house building]. Consumer demand for passive houses is also increasing, says Michael Ingui, an architect in New York City and the founder of the Passive House Accelerator... The need to lower our energy footprint is so much more top-of-mind today than it was 10 years ago, Ingui says, and covid taught us about the importance of good ventilation and filtered fresh air. "People are searching for the healthiest house," he says, "and that's a passive house...."
These days, new passive houses are usually large, multifamily apartment buildings or high-end single-family homes. But that leaves out a large swath of homeowners in the middle. To widen passive house accessibility to include all types of people and their housing needs, we need better energy codes and even more policies and incentives, says In Cho, a sustainability architect, educator and a co-founder of the nonprofit Passive House for Everyone! Passive houses "can and should serve folks from all socioeconomic backgrounds," she says. Using a one-two punch of mandates for energy efficient buildings and greater awareness to the public, that increased demand for passive houses will lead to more supply, Cho says. And we're already seeing those changes in the market.
Take triple-pane windows, for example, which are higher performing and more insulating than their double-pane counterparts. Even just 10 to 20 years ago, the difference in price between the two was high enough to make triple-pane windows cost-prohibitive for a lot of people, Cho says. Over the years, as the benefits of higher performing windows became more well-known, and as cities and states changed their energy codes, more companies began producing better windows. Now they're basically at price parity, she says. If we keep pushing for greater awareness and further policy changes, it's possible that all of the components of passive house buildings could follow that trend.
"For large multifamily projects, we're already seeing price parity in some cases, Semke says...
"But as it stands, single-family passive houses are still likely to cost a margin more than non-passive houses, he says. This is because price parity is easier to achieve when working at larger scales, but also because many of the housing policies and incentives encouraging passive house buildings are geared toward these larger projects."
Their benefits include protection from pollution and pollen, noise insulation and a stable indoor temperature that minimizes energy needs. That translates to long-term savings on heating and cooling.
While the concept has been around for about 50 years, experts say that the United States is on the cusp of a passive house boom, driven by lowered costs, state-level energy code changes and a general greater awareness of — and desire for — more sustainable housing... Massachusetts — which alongside New York and Pennsylvania is one of the leading states in passive house adoption — has 272 passive house projects underway thanks to an incentive program, says Zack Semke [the director of the Passive House Accelerator, a group of industry professionals who aim to spread lessons in passive house building]. Consumer demand for passive houses is also increasing, says Michael Ingui, an architect in New York City and the founder of the Passive House Accelerator... The need to lower our energy footprint is so much more top-of-mind today than it was 10 years ago, Ingui says, and covid taught us about the importance of good ventilation and filtered fresh air. "People are searching for the healthiest house," he says, "and that's a passive house...."
These days, new passive houses are usually large, multifamily apartment buildings or high-end single-family homes. But that leaves out a large swath of homeowners in the middle. To widen passive house accessibility to include all types of people and their housing needs, we need better energy codes and even more policies and incentives, says In Cho, a sustainability architect, educator and a co-founder of the nonprofit Passive House for Everyone! Passive houses "can and should serve folks from all socioeconomic backgrounds," she says. Using a one-two punch of mandates for energy efficient buildings and greater awareness to the public, that increased demand for passive houses will lead to more supply, Cho says. And we're already seeing those changes in the market.
Take triple-pane windows, for example, which are higher performing and more insulating than their double-pane counterparts. Even just 10 to 20 years ago, the difference in price between the two was high enough to make triple-pane windows cost-prohibitive for a lot of people, Cho says. Over the years, as the benefits of higher performing windows became more well-known, and as cities and states changed their energy codes, more companies began producing better windows. Now they're basically at price parity, she says. If we keep pushing for greater awareness and further policy changes, it's possible that all of the components of passive house buildings could follow that trend.
"For large multifamily projects, we're already seeing price parity in some cases, Semke says...
"But as it stands, single-family passive houses are still likely to cost a margin more than non-passive houses, he says. This is because price parity is easier to achieve when working at larger scales, but also because many of the housing policies and incentives encouraging passive house buildings are geared toward these larger projects."
"Prevents outside air from entering the home" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Prevents outside air from entering the home" (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the sealed builing relies on retaining the building's internal temperature, so insulation and no air leaks.
When I built my house in CA, the Accurate Dorwin (Canada) triple glazed windows included a thermal break to reduce conduction from the outside. I considered the US Big Gorilla, Andersen, but at the time the website would not provide any factual data and required a sales visit. No thanks.
No. It's a good one for most of us + windows open (Score:5, Interesting)
Hermetically sealing the structure is probably the wrong approach, actually. You'd be better off with orienting the home toward prevailing winds, using DC-powered ceiling fans and ultimately getting over your phobia of having open windows. I've spend many summers in the deep south with old homes built like this, and a sealed building that depends on AC is much more miserable.
Passive housing is relatively common in Germany as well as other parts of Northern Europe. If you can afford it, it's very nice. However, we can't orient our homes. We have to build in whichever way the lot is facing, especially for thos of us living in the city. If you live in the Deep South, maybe you don't need heat, but we do in the NorthEast and spend a LOT of money heating our homes so we don't shiver while wearing sweat pants and sweaters around the house.
And you know the windows open, right? In Germany, new homes often have windows that are extra efficient and tilt outward. (I assume other wealthy Northern European nations as well). They're unheard of here, but they're supposed to be much much much better insulated.
Re: No. It's a good one for most of us + windows (Score:5, Interesting)
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You're confusing insulation with passive housing. Passive housing is not used widely anywhere, because of how hilariously expensive and mouldy it gets. It was a short term trend in 2000s in the Nordics to build houses that were fairly close to being passive. It died out after almost all of these houses were so moldy that they became health hazards and unlivable within a few years. Most of these "almost but not quite" passive houses from that era have been demolished.
What we do is more insulation and central
That's just FUD (Score:2)
>> how hilariously expensive and mouldy it gets
That's just FUD.
It does not get any mold. Ventilation in any passive house is done through a heat exchanger and continuous mechanical ventilation.
You got sold something that is not a passive house.
Re: No. It's a good one for most of us + windows o (Score:2)
My German friend did the right thing pointing that out. It has become obvious around here. Come on, US, catch up.
If my German friend would not survive
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What's with the higher technology technology talk? This has been solved centuries ago with Turf homes in Iceland and elsewhere.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/art... [bbc.com]
Known as "torfbæir", these ingeniously designed homes helped settle one of Europe's least-hospitable environments.
One could build using natural materials, benefit from their natural insulation and add in a few modern conveniences like a modified HVAC and air filtration system, 2/3/4 layered glass windows, electricity, etc.
It would solve many is
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Adobe is a Shitty Software company. Don't trust them with anything construction related :)) :)
My Architect is converting to PDF-Free drawings now, so the resulting building gets tougher, and you don't need a monthly subscription to view the drawings
Re: "Prevents outside air from entering the home" (Score:3)
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This answered my question, thanks.
US homes are designed to allow outside air to come through to keep inside air from getting stagnant. Without a system in place to constantly move air through artificially the inside air would very quickly become unpleasant in a sealed structure.
Tl;Dr our homes are intentionally leaky so they don't get stinky.
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You have a url that shows modern US homes are inefficient? Or that it is a major cause of co2 production?
Citation, please.
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Insulation is different from allowing airflow. Most of my homes were very well insulated. Airflow can be through the filtered ac system, through the holes they drill in cinder block homes to reduce moisture. In one case we had a whole house fan ($600 installed) which would blow out the whole house in 60 seconds. It was crazy powerful and would pull ashes from the fireplace/chimney if you didn't open some doors or windows first (yes, I made that mistake exactly once and spend an hour cleaning up). But t
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On one of my business trips to the UK, I sat at the table next to some of the sales guys where one of the Brits who had traveled was regaling the other EU folks at his table with stories of America and how "everyone has a gun and if you want to mount a 50 cal machine to your truck, you can do that, too!"
I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his buddies. It wasn't important, so I let it go.
We are not engaged in a state of endless gunfire and civil war where grannies pull semi autos out of their purse o
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>> We are not engaged in a state of endless gunfire
Hmm, so you ignore the tens of thousands of people killed by guns every year ?
Hint: USA has 100x more death rate by guns than average Europe...
https://www.healthdata.org/new... [healthdata.org]
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You replaced guns with knives and machetes. So when some Islamic killer goes off and hacks up a bunch of kids with a machete he knows he's not going to be stopped by anyone with a gun. We have school shootings. You have school choppings. The dead are still dead.
Most of those gun deaths are gang bangers and illegals shooting each other over drug deals and territory. They aren't people. The more of them who kill each other, the better. Removing all guns from honest citizens won't do a thing about those
Wrong. (Score:2)
you are wrong.
Arm the guys, you'll have more rape.
Arm the girl, you'll have more rape also.
Re:"Prevents outside air from entering the home" (Score:5, Informative)
Hermetically sealing the structure is probably the wrong approach
Passive homes are not hermetically sealed.
They use counter-current heat exchangers to pull in fresh air and warm it with the inside air going out.
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Indeed, it would be very bad for your health if they were sealed. You need airflow to maintain low CO2 levels and a pleasant environment.
The trick is to control that airflow, so it's not just cold/hot air leaking in that you then need to heat/cool in an inefficient manner. Using heat exchangers allows you to filter the air of pollutants and bring it to the correct temperature as efficiently as possible, and with a bit of positive pressure it also reduces the amount of dust that gets in.
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Hermetically sealed is, indeed, overkill, with bad effects. But there are lots of benefits to good insulation and controlled air flow. Elimination of pollen is only one of them.
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I don't have a "phobia" about opening windows - I have sinus allergies that include the neighbor's large oak tree. Letting in that pollen and dust from the leaves is terrible for my breathing, so I keep the windows closed and run the AC. Having a way to bring in filtered outside air would be better.
Though - sealing up the walls/ceiling/roof of a structure is a good way to seal in what rises from the ground in some places: radon gas. While crawlspace houses are more susceptible, even slab houses can get it (
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The houses are not sealed.
If you had read the summary you had noticed.
And they have no AC, that is what passive means.
And often: they only have emergency heating if it is super cold. Aka: the heating is OFF 95% of the time. As it is passive heated.
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A house should not be hermetically sealed. It should "breathe" - at least to be able to exchange air.
First, inside air will get polluted - it will naturally have higher CO2 levels and higher concentrations of things like VOCs and such. That polluted air needs to be ventilated outside and fresh air brought in. Ventilation is extremely impotrant. CO2 levels indoors can get over 1000 ppm, which makes people feel lethargic and generally miserable. In fact, it's so bad in the EU they put monitors in classrooms a
Re:"Prevents outside air from entering the home" (Score:5, Insightful)
I recommend you take a look at the actual PassiveHouse design, planning, and requirements sometime. All these concerns are met and exceeded with proper design, and unlike some broad green certifications, the PassiveHouse standard is laser focused on energy efficiency and air quality. That's it, that's all, and they are the best certification out there for it. There's no getting around them, no getting to skimp out on it by overcompensating with some random other unrelated factors. If a building is actually PassiveHouse certified, it will have awesome energy efficiency and excellent air quality. Won't say or imply anything about anything else, but those two items will be great. (although from experience, the quality required to hit the air pressure test is a really strong indicator to good quality craftsmanship for the building envelope.)
A certified PassiveHouse will have massively better ventliation than most standard buildings. That is to say, more fresh, filtered air in every room, and less stagnant air. An important difference from many houses, though, is the fact that air exchange is constant, not just something that happens as a byproduct of the AC or furnace turning on. As such it can be much, much quieter since it is exchanging the air every second, not just trying to bulk change it every few minutes.
Oh, and none of these cheap "air exchangers" that remix the exiting air back into the incoming air so the house is only actually getting 40% fresh air coming in the ventilation. Passive House certified air exchangers usually have >90% fresh air (actually, usually zero crossover at all in my experience).
If you want some more info:
https://passivehouse.com/02_in... [passivehouse.com]
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How well do the air exchange work in the case of a power outage?
You laugh, but Helene took out power for 60,000 of my neighbors-- and we didn't even take a direct hit. After a tropical cyclone, you can have a perfectly habitable house, but no electricity for several days.
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And with no electricity for several days - mold can begin to take root in passive houses since you have nothing to move the air and moisture around en masse.
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If it's being lived in, CO2 will force you to open the windows.
If it's not being lived in, where is all the moisture coming from?
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no it is not, just google the Saskatchewan Conservation House, sorry, but clearly you have no idea, the truth is we've known about Passive Solar Homes for years but a corrupt economy is never going to allow energy efficiency
this is classism and the rich use our energy to cheat us, steal from us and control us and all the greedy selfish and irresponsible people allow this to continue
Re:"Prevents outside air from entering the home" (Score:5, Informative)
The trick is using the exhaust air to heat or cool the incoming fresh air.
You draw fresh outside air into the building's air system, filter it, then pass it through a heat exchanger (Energy Recovery Ventilator or ERV) to bring the temperature of the incoming air to that of the air passing out of the house.
This conserves the temperature of the building's interior while exhausting the stale air to the outside of the structure.
Re: "Prevents outside air from entering the home" (Score:2)
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Passive (Score:2)
Windows? (Score:3)
a perfect seal that prevents outside air from penetrating the home; air flows in and out through filtration and exhaust systems only.
I'm presuming this means never opening windows which in turn means no getting fresh, cool, free air in the spring and fall. Instead, something electical is always running to keep the air flowing. Doesn't sound efficient or cost-effective. But then, that's the American way. Why get something for free when you can spend money?
They open + you can't concentrate and sweat (Score:3)
a perfect seal that prevents outside air from penetrating the home; air flows in and out through filtration and exhaust systems only.
I'm presuming this means never opening windows which in turn means no getting fresh, cool, free air in the spring and fall. Instead, something electical is always running to keep the air flowing. Doesn't sound efficient or cost-effective. But then, that's the American way. Why get something for free when you can spend money?
Passive housing windows in Europe often tilt outward, but they definitely open. Also, it was pioneered in Germany and Northern Europe...where heating fuel is a lot more expensive....not "the American Way." Folks there, usually comment how we're too dependant on AC, so they definitely rely on opening windows in the summer.
Finally, sorry folks...AC is essential for work. If you're sweating, you're not concentrating. Europeans can scoff at Americans all they want, but we are leading the software world,
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This doesn't constitute a perfect seal and probably not what this article is about.
Re: They open + you can't concentrate and sweat (Score:3)
Passive homes absolutely have windows that open.
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> I'm presuming this means never opening windows which in turn means no getting fresh, cool, free air in the spring and fall. Instead, something electical is always running to keep the air flowing. Doesn't sound efficient or cost-effective.
It is extremely efficient, especially several years on when the seals on operable windows wear out and start leaking. It's about controlling the flow of energy in and out of the house, and if it only takes 100-200 watts to optimize that it's a win year over year. Havin
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Having your windows open all spring brings in a lot more dust and pollen than you might realize which reduces indoor air qualit
I have my windows open as much as I can throughout the year and have no problems. Then again, I don't live in the middle of a heat island city with all the consequent pollution. Yes, pollen will come in during the spring, but I don't have a weak immune system so it's never an issue. Having a free breeze blow through the house is far better than living in a cave.
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air flows in and out through filtration and exhaust systems only
I have a dog, a cat and kids. Air is going to be flowing in and out the doors almost constantly.
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Have you tried wrapping them in plastic and attaching a small AC unit?
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No. It means you open the windows when ever you want/feel like it.
And when the windows are closed the house is "running" on its own, with out any energy usage.
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You get plenty of fresh, cool air. It's just that it comes in through a filtration and heat exchange system. You can open the windows but it's not really necessary unless you need to rapidly clear a room of some pollutant.
It is very cost effective because the house doesn't lose or gain so much heat constantly, meaning you have a much smaller volume of fresh air that needs conditioning. And that conditioning is done in a more efficient manner. Your bills will be extremely low and with a decent amount of sola
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I'm presuming
Stop it. You read it wrong/didn't read enough of it and confused yourself. Try reading it instead of presuming.
You have lots of company, as lots of other people who can't read and don't know anything about this are also commenting. Pretty sad what this site has become, just legions of people proving they're unqualified to comment.
Re: Windows? (Score:3)
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"Why get something for free when you can spend money?"
Or not get it at all, like the education you didn't bother with.
Linux, not Windows. (Score:2)
>> I'm presuming this means never opening windows
You're presuming wrong.
You can open windows in a passive house any time you want.
You'll get fresh, cool, free air any time of the year without opening the windows.
We live in this kind of house since 10 Years, and yes, we open windows in the spring and fall.
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In Fallout 4 make sure you go behind the line of houses on the left in your home neighborhood and go down into the bomb shelter for some starter goodies and climb the fallen tree to the roof of the house nearby for a bag of other stuff you'll want early game.
It was stuffy down there but worth it.
It's an old idea but a good one (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was a hippy back in the 60s there was a magazine called Mother Earth News that was full of DIY homesteading ideas. This was one of them. It was called an 'envelope house' due to the wrap-around air circulation.
Health (Score:3)
Hermetically sealing a house sounds like a great way to make the inside air pretty unhealthy.
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An air to air heat exchanger is a good idea for sure.
Super-insulated makes sense in new construction up north. For existing housing there isn't much you can do after the attic is insulated and the windows upgraded.
Fair point, but we have options (Score:2)
Hermetically sealing a house sounds like a great way to make the inside air pretty unhealthy.
That is a reasonable point, but consider that windows open. If it's a nice day, open the windows. However, most of us Americans live in areas with cold winters and hot summers. In cold winters, it's worth relying on moderately priced air filters to keep the air clean and your heating bills down. In summers?...well...if you don't want to run the AC, that's your choice. For some regions, that's a death sentence for toddlers, the elderly, or infirmed. However, I lived without AC for a few years when I wa
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Hermetically sealing a house sounds like a great way to make the inside air pretty unhealthy.
I own an "Energy Star 2016" rated house in the US southwest. It's built with chemically expanded rigid foam insulation applied to the space in the exterior 2x6 stud walls, including the attic & garage. When we bought it, it was sealed quite tightly. It has a heat pump that can extract heat from outside air down to at least 0 deg/F (-17/C), and it has an outside air induction system that has a "minutes per hour" adjustment controller that forces the air-handler to turn on and pull filtered air in from
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Glorious Texas weather and construction: in childhood in two different towns (central and NE, small houses, one pre-electric 1900s, individual room gas heaters, retrofitted with electric lighting and an attic fan; other was early 1950s vintage), there were occasions when it was necessary to boil a pot of water on the stove to pour into the frozen toilet bowl.
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>> Hermetically sealing a house
You did not understand.
The house is sealed so all the air coming in and out is controlled and goes through a heat exchanger.
Loans, mortgages, and insurance. (Score:5, Informative)
https://commercialobserver.com... [commercialobserver.com]
"By lowering utility and energy costs — which make up 30 percent of operating expenses for multifamily buildings, and can be a pathway to more profitability, especially in rent-capped affordable housing — passive house construction can make buildings more productive assets over time. The lower energy load also makes electrification more cost competitive. Traditionally, though, most financing options for construction don’t incorporate those savings into underwriting loans. That’s a lost incentive for sustainable building. "
In other words, passive home construction dramatically lowers the total cost of ownership over the lifetime of the building/home, but the lender won't credit that towards your financing. The reason for this is the same reason most homes in the US build the cheapest homes that pass code - people aren't willing to pay up front for the benefit, so it isn't reflected in the pricing. If it isn't reflected in the pricing, it can't be reflected in the valuation. If it isn't reflected in the valuation... then they won't credit that value when determining how much to lend you.
It doesn't help that a lot of this also depends on how long someone plans on staying in the home. The value I've been told, as a rule of thumb historically, is 7 years on average. Post great recession that number has apparently gone up: https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/... [www.nar.realtor] . I have no idea what it is now... but if you're not going to stay in home long enough to fully recoup the additional upfront cost, then you're probably not going to pay extra for it. Then there's the bonus problem... if a passive home is more expensive to build... it will be more expensive to insure in the event of a total loss.
So your alternatives are to pay out of pocket (if you're building the home for yourself), or rely on state/federal grants if there's a gap. And you really have to do your math to figure out (and taking into account trends for energy costs) whether it will pencil out in the end.
I personally think that houses should be built to better standards, using better construction methods (mass manufactured modular components built inside of factories with more automation, instead of having people in the field doing bespoke framing, wiring, drywalling, etc.) Maybe someone will put in a big enough order of housing over time to make such a passive house assembly line economical to run long-term in a way that will drop housing costs, compared to traditional construction.
Examples of panelized/prefab passive house construction:
https://www.tooketree.com/ [tooketree.com]
https://bensonwood.com/why-us/... [bensonwood.com]
https://www.gologic.us/ [gologic.us]
https://ecoprefabs.com/kit-hom... [ecoprefabs.com]
Reference for passive house / passivhaus certification definitions:
https://www.finehomebuilding.c... [finehomebuilding.com]
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mass manufactured modular components built inside of factories with more automation
My parents did that during COVID. They build a new, modern house. It was finished 3 months after the first digger showed up. They then showed up with large truck carrying the walls, large parts of the roof, etc... But overall it was more expensive that the traditional method. Nice modern house and well insulated though (not totally passive).
Mold and mildew farms. (Score:3)
You get one big problem with hermetically sealed houses: mold and mildew can get really, really bad. You can get wood rot as well. There are good reasons why homes have soffit vents. (https://roofinginsights.com/what-is-a-soffit-vent/)
But having a highly energy efficient home can make economic sense and not have this problem. (Depending how much it costs to get there.) It's also a heck of a lot easier to do on new construction vs. remediation on old construction.
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These homes are not hermetically sealed, and in fact in Europe most (all?) countries have minimum airflow requirements. Air flow is necessary for healthy living, to prevent CO2 build up.
Rather than just let air come in via leakage or open windows, you use a heat exchanger. They are very efficient because instead of actively heating or cooling the air, they mostly just exchange the heat with the outside, be that to heat or cool the fresh air being taken in.
They typically have a humidity sensor, and there wil
Scary (Score:2)
Living in a hermetically sealed structure sounds scary as fuck. I kinda need a steady supply of oxygen to breathe, unless my 3rd grade science teacher lied to me.
Lower total cost is the goal (Score:2)
Not price parity. What are the combined mortgage and utility costs? For passive houses, expect the total to be lower than the alternative.
But the mortgage industry is not set up to accept this calculation and home builders are not particularly interested.
Builders do what code requires, no more, with rare exceptions.
Giving them a reasonable argument that banks accept will make the transition _much_ faster.
PS. The parity link is paywalled.
Saskatchewan Conservation House (Score:2)
The Saskatchewan Conservation House (211 Rink Ave, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada) is an early exemplar of energy-efficient building construction that introduced best practices for addressing air leakage in houses. It was designed in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s at the request of the Government of Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Conservation House pioneered the use of superinsulation and airtightness in passive design and included one of the earliest heat recovery systems. The house did not requi
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that would be heating
The actual source of the Certification Standard (Score:2)
If you want to learn more about the Passive House standard, I strongly recommend going straight to the source:
https://passivehouse.com/02_in... [passivehouse.com]
Unlike LEED or the vast majority of other green standards, the Passive House standard is entirely focused on exactly two things:
- Energy efficiency of the building envelope (aka keeping indoors comfortable year round in both heating and cooling seasons with extremely high energy efficiency)
- Internal air quality (Ensuring all living spaces have clean, fresh, and filt
Mood (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Mood (Score:2)
Passive homes can have entire walls of windows. You just need the right kind of windows.
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Isn't the whole point of building better that you won't have to constantly worry about energy use? If it's built energy-efficient, you can just... live comfortably in it.
It's the leaky old houses where you have to make trade-offs that degrade your quality of life.. Like not keeping the house at a comfortable temperature because it'll cost too much. Or you put up with stuffy air in the winter because the only way to ventilate is by opening windows. And all those air leaks are growing mold in the walls...
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I know he was making a political statement, but yeah, it seems to me that handling something passively decreases the necessity of worrying about it.
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Ventilation and air quality (Score:2)
I am old school in keeping windows open whenever possible.
Re: Ventilation and air quality (Score:2)
Passive homes are definitely more money up front. But they are cheaper in the long run in most cases. Unless you live somewhere like coastal Southern California or the Mediterranean, where you never need heat or AC, passive homes are generally gonna be cheaper.
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Re: Ventilation and air quality (Score:2)
Some estimates are up to 90% energy savings. So that would be $136k in savings over the 50 years for your simple example. But there are other savings too, like overall maintenance tends to run a bit cheaper due to the sealed envelope leading to less wear on the house.
Build into the Earth, less temp fluctuation. (Score:2)
Little house on the prairie is the worst house you can build efficiency wise. Anyone with a basement understands this, although I can see most would not want only one or two sides exposed enough to have windows and doors.
Re: Build into the Earth, less temp fluctuation. (Score:2)
Having half the house "submerged" is actually part of the design of the house I've been planning to build. That side of the house is for things like the study and media room, where sunlight isn't a desirable characteristic and for maintenance areas, like the laundry, HVAC access, etc. The living spaces are all on the side with giant floor to ceiling windows, while the bedrooms are up on a split level above the "submerged" area.
Triple Pane. Double the cost (Score:2)
Re: Triple Pane. Double the cost (Score:2)
If you're not doing a passive home, it's probably not worth it. But if you are, then that extra sealing is important, especially if you want large windows.
Passive homes are expensive up front and cheap in the long run.
Re:Gonna see lots of WaPo stories out there going (Score:4, Insightful)
This is super off topic but he hasn't done anything yet.
He's been pretty hands off since it bought it. If you think declaring that he wants to get away from the appearance of bias is the same as destroying the paper then that's just really weird. Real newspapers should strive for and be proud of being free of bias as humanly possible. When half the population thinks your paper is unfit to wrap fit or the bottom of a bird cage there's a problem with your paper, not the people.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, yes, we know. Anyone who disagrees with you is stupid and evil and a cultist. Uh huh.
The adults are talking adult stuff here. Please be quiet. You might learn something. Start by reading the Bezos op-ed on why he cancelled the "gosh what a surprise!" wapo Kamala endorsement. Have you read it? No.
Re: (Score:2)
Wapo lost 200k subscribers and a bunch of staff quit when Bezos said being unbiased was important.
I know FACTS don't work well in your reality but it is what it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes? And? Oh noes! Bezos met with criticism!! Stop your pearl clutching.
Re: (Score:2)
You must really need that dopamine hit or whatever weird satisfaction you get from replies to your trolling, because you've really dialed up the asshole component in this thread up to eleven. Maybe the intense cognitive dissonance required to rationalize your vote for tfg is getting to you.
But hey, I'm a bit bored, so I can be an enabler.
Anyway, it's downright comical how you're accepting Bezos's claims at face value. WaPo has been endorsing candidates for years, including in this election cycle. The editor
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, much more likely Bezos is terrified of Trump than deciding to continue to watch his newspaper asset continue to decline on its own with his hand's off policy. Nice conspiracy theory.
The rest of your post is pure ad hominem and will be ignored as such. You didn't need to write a novella to say, "I don't like you and therefore you are wrong".
Re: (Score:2)
Someday, maybe, you'll use 'ad hominem' correctly.
Today is not that day.
Re: (Score:2)
You have Google. Look it up. It's on you to educate yourself. If you're going to call people ignorant then you need to demonstrate it not just toss out conspiracy theory and ad hominem.
Come back when you're prepared to discuss a topic with data, evidence and facts.
Re: (Score:2)
When talking to children, yes, they do.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Not sure it's a great idea to filter everythin (Score:2)
Re: What about the smell? (Score:2)
The whole crux of passive homes is that air is exchanged in a controlled fashion. Your air quality will generally be better in a passive home because they are designed to provide air exchange and airflow throughout the home and all air will regularly be filtered.
In traditional homes, your air quality is an accident, not a design consideration. The air comes and goes based on flaws in design and construction, rather than engineering.