Flatrock Passive House: A Passive House in Newfoundland

The ERV (Venmar X24ERVE) has been installed for some time now.   It was installed in February to help with some of the moisture load associated with the drywall and plaster.   Three dehumidifiers weren't able to keep up with the moisture load so Adam (Hot Water and Fresh Air Systems) installed the ERV and we turned it on to help with the drying process.  Initially the system ran unbalanced but with the house under some depressurization so we both agreed that it was fine given that it was heating season. Just before we moved in, we balanced the ERV.  The balancing the procedure for the X24ERV is fairly simple and all electronic.  The procedure is carried out using the x24 wall control.  First, the tubes of the differential manometer are connected to the ERV pressure ports.  The manometer provides a differential pressure reading in inches H2O.  The CFM is then determined from a data table included with the machine which represents stale air fan curve.  You can then adjust the fan s

Before getting into most of the particulars about the hydronic system and the Walltherm commissioning I figured that I should discuss a little about my choices of radiators.   There were none available locally.  Hydronic radiators are a specialty item so had to be ordered in regardless of brand name.  Jaga makes low temperature radiators.  They have a large surface area and provide high BTU at low temperatures.  Some of them have ECM fans to boost output.  The price was beyond the scope of my build so I abandoned that idea fairly early after I decided that I wanted to use hydronic heating.  My HVAC contractor (Adam Rickert, Hot Water Systems), recommended Softline radiators by Stelrad ( http://www.expressradiant.ca/compact-series ).  They are a low volume radiator and the manufacturer provides BTU output for low water temperatures.  The BTU output from the radiators was determined from load calculations provided by Passive Design Solutions.  Moving water around at lower temperatures l

The Walltherm is the centre showcase of the Flatrock Passive House heating system.  As mentioned in previous posts, it is a gasification boiler.  With a efficiency of 93% (LHV), it dumps about 12.5 kW into hot water while only 2.5 kW is emitted to the room (specifications with the Quick Insulation kit installed.).  It took 4 of us to move it with a hand truck into the living room (Photo 1).  With the wall thimble already in place (Photo 1) it there was only one place for it to go.  However, limitations in the lengths of double wall stove pipe made the placement a little challenging. This being said Excel ULTRABlack   manufactured by ICC (Purchased locally from Emberly Fireplace ) comes in a variety of different lengths, and they also have slip lengths to accommodate many set ups so we placed the stove so that the back was 10" to the wall (minimum offset to combustible according to the manufacturer).  Excel ultra black lengths were chosen so that the setup would work.  Photo 4 show