Flatrock Passive House: A Passive House in Newfoundland

People in Canada typically use about 75 litres of water per day.  In a 3 person household, the total hot water consumption would amount to about 225 litres per day.  We can safely assume that the water entering the hot water tank is somewhere between ground temperature (7 deg Celsius) and room temperature.  Lets say 10 deg C.  Using the heat capacity of water, one can calculate the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of the water from 10 deg C to 55 deg C.  That amount of energy is about 11.8 kWh.  Typical electric tanks consume about 0.5 kWh in standby losses and you can safely assume you'll loose another 0.5 kWh in pipe loses.  So the to total energy used for hot water in a 3 person household is about 12.8 kWh.  Assuming average usage patterns, the total amount used per year will be 12.8 kWh/day x 365 days/year = 4672 kWh/year. This is about the same energy requirements as the total heating load for a 2000 sf Passive House.  Further, minimizing the required energ

When I was a boy, I remember going into the forrest with my father cutting wood.  We had an old Elan 12 HP.  It was the ugliest looking skidoo ever but it could pull a massive amount of wood.....and thats what he pulled...and pulled, and pulled.  Can't remember how many cords exactly but I remember we would cut it up and throw it in a pile....and it was the size of a small mountain.  When spring came, we would split each piece with an axe and then stack it.  I remember 3 or 4 tiers of wood stacked 4' high and the tiers were probably 25'-30' long. It would dry for the summer and then we would throw it aboard a truck and bring it to our house where we would then throw it into a shed and stack it again.   It was a lot of work.   It was dirty.  I swore that I would never touch wood again....until now. I currently use a propane fireplace.  Its convenient....and that is where it ends.  Propane as an energy source is non-renewable, it's shipped in from outside of provinc

Since yesterday there have been several rounds of plans and renderings.  We are trying to capture the Newfoundland vernacular architectural style: The Saltbox. Saltbox homes are simple, linear, built to shed the newfoundland climate with a steep pitched roof.  They also happen to be a great shape for a Passive House.  Here are a couple of the floor plans and renderings: The main difference between the two plans is the gable orientation on the garage.  Sch-3 has a much simpler roof line than Sch-4  This may be our best option since the area over the breeze way can be included in the thermal envelope of the garage and add for extra space in the garage attic.  We can add a shed canopy to the front/back of either plan to act as shading over the south facing windows if necessary.  We'll see....next round to come soon....

So, which HRV do you want for your home?  This is a question not often asked by the homeowner.  When the house is built, somebody installed an HRV and that was it.  The home owner is rarely involved in anything other than turning a knob on the HRV wall control if they dare fool with it at all.  An HRV is probably one of the most important appliances in your house;  it expels moisture, eliminates odours, evacuates stale air from bathrooms, provides clean air to keep you healthy and it recovers a lot of heat that would have otherwise been blown out through the vent on the house.  It serves three main functions: 1.  Supplies the home with fresh dry air. 2.  Removes stale air and removes excess moisture. 3.  Recovers heat or heat/moisture For a low energy home we need an HRV that is as efficient as possible.  With the ventilation unit taking care of exchanging most of the air in the building, having an efficient one will pay for itself in the energy saved over it's lifetime.  Zeh

A house design has to work with your lifestyle;  Otherwise it's an awkward house to live in.  Getting a layout right is important.  A good orientation for the house is also equally important.  Both work hand in hand.  It also needs to work in conjunction with the lot.  Does the lot have a south side yard?  Will it be shaded by adjacent structures? Do the grades on the lot facilitate a frost protected shallow foundation or will you need to pour footings and a stem wall?  These are all important questions...and there are many more questions beyond the layout which will affect the total energy consumed/produced by the building.  Knowing all of these answers up front are the key to a successful project. In the first part of the project, the lot grading plan, the foot print of the house and the layout are all planned together to ensure that the internal layout of the building matches the best orientation on the lot to capture solar gains.  Solar gains change very little over 15 degree

A home is more than a floor plan.  Based on the Passive House Principles presented earlier, there are a lot of details to get right beyond a simple floor plan.    If you want a performance home, that has predictable energy usage, it comes at a price.  That premium is a small price to pay.  The final outcome is a predictable home.  Working with an architect and/or a passive house consultant is probably the most important part of the project.  Without their expertise, you'll still end up with a super-insulated house which will decrease your energy bill, but other details may be missed.  Will overheating be a factor?  Do you need extra overhangs to minimize solar gain during the summer?  Do your north facing windows loose more energy in the winter than the solar gains on the south face?  These questions can be answered up front, before the home gets built!  Thats the job of the Passive House consultant. We wanted to keep our business as local as possible.  As there are no Passive

The energy requirements for the Passive House standard (PHIUS) are pretty tight if you compare them against a code built home.  The home must be built to satisfy several key factors which are dependent on climate as per the map below.  The specifications that I am concentrating on are for climate region 6A 1.   Primary Energy Demand  of the building can't be any more than (# bedrooms +1)*6200kWh.  Which gives  a total of 24800 kWh.  This seems like a lot but you'll see, its not a much as you may think. 2.  The Total Annual Heating Demand has to be <25.3 kWh/sq. m.  (internal floor area).  For a typical 2000 sq. ft. home this will give a total of about 5000 kWh 3.  The Peak Heating Load has to be less than 13.5 W/sq. m. (internal floor area).  So on the coldest day of the year, if it's not sunny, the heat requirements of a 2000 sq. ft. building will be about 2600 W.  So a 2000 sq. ft. home could he heated with two 40" (1500W) baseboard heaters! North Ameri

When people think of houses being passive they think about "passive solar".  Passive solar is a different kind of home and although it integrates some passive elements, a passive house is still more energy efficient and can be tailored to a wider degree of climatic conditions.  Passive House aims to meet some of the energy demand of the building using passive elements.  The effect on the building is less energy usage. What is a passive element?  A passive element is a part of the building that offsets the energy demand of the building passively.  It is some element that is used to gain a desired effect without having to add energy actively.  When a building envelope is super-insulated, air tight, and thermal-bridge free, the total energy inside a building stays constant for longer periods since the envelope resists the flow of heat inwards or outwards. There are several ways to gain heat passively.  South facing windows can be a huge contributor to heat.   However the

Sealing a house up so tight that under a blower door test it out performs a code built home by a factor of 10 is a good thing right?  It can be.  Especially in the sense of heating/cooling.    However it comes at a price.  The price is that unventilated spaces have a lot of issues.  Volatile organic compounds from building products, air contaminants from cooking, body odour, moisture from breathing, showering, washing dishes...all build up inside the building envelope.  The air becomes stale and unhealthy.  With the right environment, condensation can build up bulk water in areas which lead to mold growth which releases spores which you breath and eventually everybody inside the structure has a cough, chronic asthma, headaches, and the list goes on...Did this problem exist in older homes? Nope.  A lot of older homes had nothing in the walls.  Water vapour passed right through from the inside-out or the outside-in.  People didn't have an HR in their HRV (The HR is for "Heat Rec

The Passive House standard is about maximizing the performance of a building in many ways in order to minimize system requirements of the building.  The idea is to pack as much thermal efficiency into the building so as to take advantage of simpler, smaller heating/cooling systems, simpler mechanical systems, and simpler electrical systems.  Ultimately the extra cost of the thermal efficiency would be offset by the cost difference in the simpler systems. A pie chart below shows comparisons between a conventional home and a passive house.  They are assuming that 59% of the total energy consumed by a conventional building is used for heating.  If the building was a passive house, the total savings would equate to 53% of the total energy consumed by a conventional building.  This equates to a 90% savings in heating cost. However, domestic hot water (DHW) heating is still a problem.  In fact, DHW requirements will be similar to a conventional house making the energy usage associated

The next 5 blog entries will be a series about the Passive house principles.   Today I'll explore some details about "The Envelope". How does one create a home that uses less energy?  Well, its fairly common knowledge that adding insulation helps reduce energy gain/loss.  How much do we need to add?  Well, typical code built walls are stated to be R20.  They are not actually R20!!!  Studs in the walls act as a thermal bridge to the outside which effectively reduces the R-value significantly.   This next picture was taken with a thermal imaging camera.  You can see every stud in the house! and look at all that heat passing through the windows! Now look at the next image.  Can you figure out which one was retrofitted to the Passive House standard? The one in the middle!  The exterior temperature of the building is the same as the vehicles parked on the street.  The other buildings are leaking heat like a sinking boat! Any penetration to the outside, like cant

So...after 8 1/2 years in our home, we have decided to move on.  Well, not right away! We have quite a bit of planning ahead of us.  With the likely onset of a 233% hike in the cost of electricity from Muskrat Falls (when compared to todays rate of $0.0972/kWh) we decided it was time to take energy consumption seriously before its too late to do anything about it.  The land has been acquired, the planning has started!  I am planning on nipping my energy bill in the bud before it becomes a major sinkhole in my pocket book. Upon investigating current building standards, I realized that the Canadian Building Code is below the standards necessary to really make a difference in energy consumption.  There are some standards like R2000 which can make a difference to total energy usage.  A R-2000 home can use up to 50% less heating energy compared to a code built home; if built properly!  A blower door test will reveal the truth about that. Now....Imagine living in a home where you have em