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Multifamily Passive House in Vancouver

150 points by f_allwein 9y ago

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
Passive houses got really popular over here (Austria/Germany area). It’s interesting to see it popping up in other parts of the world now too.
- baybal2 9y ago
  Vancouver is a good place where a case for passive house makes sense: annual temperature and moisture swings are not big. In other cities, not so much. You have to resort to fossil fuel heating anywhere where temperature get below -20 for extended time.
  - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
    Passive does not meanno heating. Just way less. Also works with temperature swings as evidented by the amounts of passive houses in the alps.
    - baybal2 9y ago
      A good place for passive house is one where a house can cool down enough during the night and accumulate enough of heat during the day. If the temperature simply goes to -20 and stays there 24/7 for the rest of the seasons. You have to design a house differently. I'm not sure about Alps region. Are conditions there like that?
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Lausanne was like that, not exactly the apps but on the southern nearby end. I venture that most of Europe has mild enough winters and summers outside of the extremes northern and southern parts.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    On the other hand, in nearby Seattle which has similar climate, lots of hydro makes even electric heating fairly affordable. Also it’s in the middle of winter and my window is open, I don’t see a great need for it (maybe in the summer when it heats up and we don’t have AC). I skipped on renting in a passive building in Bellevue I saw this summer because I couldn’t open the windows (well, there was one slip I could open just a little bit). It was a nice apartment at a decent discount as well.
  - upofadown 9y ago
    The 10 Watt per square meter standard remains as part of the passive house definition, no matter what the climate. The article mentions this with respect to the large amounts of insulation required in really cold places. So there is no special requirement for fossil fuels.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  Here in Japan it seems like for a long time it's been a competition to build the LEAST efficient houses possible, but recently it seems like all the ads for home builders are touting "ZEH" - Zero Energy House. Hopefully people actually choose to build these things too.
  - hudibras 9y ago
    Coincidentally, from a couple days ago, here's an English language interview with the owner of a passive house in Karuizawa. There are also some general Japan-passive-house-related links in the article. https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/02/07/man-most-energy-efficient-house-japan/1517924026 https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/02/07/man-most-energy-effi...
baybal2 9y ago
>The building is a simple super insulated “dumb building”. No technology or complicated mechanical systems, just a simple envelope, high quality windows and high quality air control through Heat Recovery Ventilation. Walk in and set your heat……that’s it! The money is spent on its simple well-built design, not technology. That is rather sophisticated by North American standards for multi-family housing. I was stunned when I first saw multi-family houses being built in American as a simple wooden, skeletal structure. My choice for something like that would've been steel frame with thermal stops for non-load bearing walls, non-removable formwork out of something like MGO board, and foam concrete pour. Not much separate insulation required for this design.
- lostmsu 9y ago
  I wish there would be some steel/concrete/brick single family options. Nearly nothing in Seattle area built after 1930.
  - huhtenberg 9y ago
    Same in Vancouver. These can be built however and there are architecture firms and construction companies that will gladly take on these projects. The issue, of course, is that it's much cheaper and simpler to build from plywood.
  - auxym 9y ago
    I know of at least this Canadian company that specializes in single-family steel-framed design and construction, but it definitely is more on the high-end side of things. https://bonestructure.ca/en/technology/ https://bonestructure.ca/en/technology/
    - tonyarkles 9y ago
      I saw one of their projects going up in Saskatoon. It looked to be an in-fill two-suite house. It went together amazingly fast, and from what I could tell it was very well built. The Bone "system" they've put together is pretty cool too; all of the major pieces come on a truck pre-cut and then assembled on-site. It reminded me of Meccano.
def- 9y ago
Last summer I lived in the largest passive house settlement in the world, in Heidelberg, Germany, and the main complaint is the heat in the summer. Even with cooling down the apartment to 20°C with open windows all night, and closed windows and window blinds all day, the apartment would be back at 28°C when returning after work. Basically it is too hot in the apartment from May to September. In a survey nearly 60% of the people living there complained that it is too hot in summers, so it doesn't seem to be an isolated problem to the specific building I lived in.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  I think that is more an effect of Germans hating air conditions.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I think the point of a passive building is that it shouldn't need air conditioning.
    - wheresmyusern 9y ago
      no, this is not the point of passive houses. it is a contradiction, but the point is to reduce hvac use as much as possible. you will always need hvac for perfect results because it is impossible to build a perfect hrv system. its impossible to insulate perfectly. there will always be heat leaking from the system. in some extreme cases people can do away with their hvac completely but its difficult and expensive.
      - matt4077 9y ago
        Living in Germany, I have not seen a single household with air conditioning in my life. Even in Italy and Spain, it’s extremely rare. As long as you don’t use plywood, it’s perfectly possible to live without ac.
        wheresmyusern 9y ago
f_allwein 9y ago
I think this is pretty much the way to go in terms of future housing - obviously, adapting to local climate and needs. I’m surprised that so many passive/ ecological houses are designed for single families, which must be a poor use of resources and land (in most places).
swampthinker 9y ago
My previous startup was an API that would give homes an energy efficiency letter grade along with a bill estimate to embedded in real estate websites. While it failed for a host of issues, one that stood out in my head was how little people valued efficiency over renewables. Generally speaking, money invested in improving building efficiency will have a better carbon and financial payback than any form of solar, wind, or hydro. And yet, homeowners will get solar panels before they insulate their walls.
- hueving 9y ago
  Nobody cares if you brag about nice insulation. It doesn't have the same social value as solar panels.
  - epmaybe 9y ago
    Then hire a marketing team to make it sexier.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Was this an American centric startup? I know in especially Germany and probably much of Europe building efficiency is a big deal, to the extent that things like smaller windows are prioritized.
  - ipsi 9y ago
    Yeah - similar information sometimes (I had to check several listings before I found one with this info) exists when looking for flats in Germany. See, e.g., https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/96661853?referrer=RESULT_LIST_LISTING&navigationServiceUrl=%2FSuche%2Fcontroller%2FexposeNavigation%2Fnavigate.go%3FsearchUrl%3D%2FSuche%2FS-T%2FWohnung-Miete%2FUmkreissuche%2FM_fcnchen_2dMaxvorstadt%2F80335%2F114221%2F2028686%2FSeidlstra_dfe%2F-%2F20%2F3%2C00-%26exposeId%3D96661853&navigationHasPrev=true&navigationHasNext=true&navigationBarType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=4c1f5bf4-5e75-33dd-9c57-cb1c147d1606#/ https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/96661853?referrer=RE... Under "Bausubstanz & Energieausweis" it lists the energy required to heat the apartment in kWh/m^2. (I don't live in Germany, but have been considering moving).
maxsilver 9y ago
From the article's description, apparently "Passive House" means "no cooling whatsoever", which explains why it's not common in the US. Don't get me wrong, we need stronger building standards and better insulation. Especially in the US, where we let literally any hollow twig+glue structure stand with essentially no quality checks whatsoever. But the reason everyone "throws a solar panel on top to get Net Zero", is because it gives you cheap green electricity to run both heat and Air Conditioning. There are precious few places you could build this thing in the US where it won't be annoyingly hot to live in for at least 3+ months every year. Even in Michigan, a building is essentially broken if it doesn't have AC, if not for the heat then to at least remove the moisture / humidity / condensation built up.
- willyt 9y ago
  You don't need AC to remove humidity. MVHR removes it and dumps it into the drains when the warm outgoing air goes through the air to air heat exchanger to warm up the incoming air.
  - maxsilver 9y ago
    Then where does the heat from your dehumidifier go? MVHR seems to assume outside air is always cooler and fresher than inside air, and uses that for free cooling. Which is great for like 70% of the time. But what about the ~30% of time when it isn't there.
    - dangravell 9y ago
      It doesn't assume that. MVHR has a bypass to disable the heat exchanger if that's important. You don't have a dehumidifier. One of the biggest benefits of fabric first is the reduction in complexity.
      - falcolas 9y ago
        If you don't have a dehumidifier, all of those big bags of mostly water that inhabit the building will expel some of that water with every breath, and going to increase the humidity fairly noticeably. I'm also going to guess that the MVHR is also not 100% efficient. It's either going to create heat to completely cool down the incoming air (hey, look, an AC, complete with dehumidification), or the incoming air is going to average out with the out going air, creating an increase in temperature. Plus, all of those bags of mostly water are going to be expelling heat, too.
vanderZwan 9y ago
Even though better energy efficiency is great, the video highlights how policy for efficient housing requires minimising draft, which implies convection heating. This means that (at least on this topic) policy is still not addressing the really fundamental problems. To give an analogy: we did not get the modern computer by building a better vacuum tube, we did it by switching to an entirely different technology. Kris de Decker has written extensively on this topic: why convection heating is problematic, which alternatives exist, and the problems with focusing exclusively on energy efficiency[0][1][2][3]. In short: - On a meta-level, the actual problem we are trying to solve is not one of heating. Heating is a solution. The problem we are solving is how to stay warm. Framing it this way opens up entirely new options to explore. - Air is a natural insulator with low thermal capacity, so an incredibly inefficient transport medium of heat. When heating up a cold room, the ambient air may heat up quickly, but the objects in a room can stay cold for very long. - Convection heating requires that the heated air does not escape the room, so we end up with a trade-off between heating and fresh air. Personal anecdote related to this: I live in house that is so well-insulated that I cannot sleep with the window closed, feeling exhausted and out of breath in the morning (likely more due to the rise of CO2 than a lack of oxygen, but the result is the same). These days I sleep with the window open, under three layers of blankets, and the heating to a bare minimum. - Convection heating also heats up the entire space, which is really wasteful: we really only care about heating the humans and other living things inside this space. To point out how ridiculous this really is: hot air naturally rises to the ceiling first, where nobody needs it. (admittedly, when a space remains damp and cold for a very long period of time, there is the problem of mould to consider. There are solutions for that, and they are more sustainable than wasting heat with convection heating) - Because the heat in the air is absorbed at the windows, we have to put the convection heater next to it to get an even heat gradient in the room. So in other words: we put our heat source right next to the biggest heat-sink in the room. Other methods of staying warm, like radiant heating or electrically heated clothing (yes, this exists) can bypass most if not all of these issues. The problem is that we are trying to make modern lifestyle more efficient without radically questioning the lifestyle itself. Elizabeth Shove had a good paper on this problem, although it can get quite dense[4]. Kris de Decker has a more accessible summary of it[3]. I'll highlight some stuff from Shove's paper: > Programmes of energy efficiency are politically uncontroversial precisely because they take current interpretations of ‘service’ for granted. But in normalizing specific definitions of service, methods of evaluating efficiency carry normative assumptions about ‘need’ forward, invisibly bedding them into future programmes of research and development. > In conclusion, the un-reflexive pursuit of energy efficiency is problematic not because it does not work, or because the benefits are absorbed elsewhere, as the rebound argument suggests, but because it does work– via the necessary concept of equivalence of service – to sustain, perhaps escalate but never undermine [...] increasingly energy-intensive ways of life. > In response, it is tempting to call for greater interdisciplinarity, and new ideas are definitely needed. However, as Daniels and Rose perceptively observed, it is no accident that the field of energy efficiency is ‘devoid of any vision of history’ (Daniels & Rose, 1982) This is not something that can be fixed since it is an unavoidable consequence of how programmes of efficiency are conceptualized. In the end, it is impossible to imagine how organizations like the IEA, the EU or the UK Committee on Climate Change might come to recognize and explicitly evaluate their own role in making and shaping present and future ‘needs’. At the same time, and as historians might well point out, the ambition of reproducing ‘present’ standards of living, now and in the years ahead, is doomed to fail. Better energy efficiency is important, but only one path. And on it's own, it will be as effective as insisting on building smaller vacuum tubes. [0] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/radiant-and-conductive-heating-systems.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/radiant-and-conductiv... [1] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html [2] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/11/heat-your-clothes-not-your-house.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/11/heat-your-clothes-not... [3] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.1361746 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.13... [4] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-efficiency.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-e...
deleted 9y ago
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Tharkun 9y ago
Tangentially related anecdote: I remain convinced that it's the occupant, not the building that matters. I heat my uninsulated 1910 era flat for about ~150EUR/year. Of that 150 about 100 goes to hot water (showers, mostly). How? By wearing clothes in winter. Sometimes a blanket if it gets particularly cold. In winter my indoor air temperature is around 14°C, which is plenty when you're wearing clothes. Buying extra insulation, or a "smart thermostat" or any other "energy saving" thingamajig would cost a lot more than the payoff would ever be.
- lancebeet 9y ago
  Does everyone in the house do this or just you? Apartments are usually heated by neighboring apartments, which means even if you turn off your heating, the temperature won't drop too low unless your neighbors do it too.
- ipsi 9y ago
  I can only assume you live somewhere pretty warm - if I don't have the heaters on in my apartment, the indoor air temperature will be roughly equal to the outdoor air temperature, which is frequently <5°C in winter. No amount of clothing is going to make that comfortable or healthy to live in. I don't know how much it costs to heat my place, since I only have storage heaters, so it all gets merged in with the rest of my electricity usage.
  - Tharkun 9y ago
    If you're interested in figuring out the costs, they sell devices —— called calorimeters i think -- which you can stick on the storage heaters and will make pretty decent estimates of the amount of energy released.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > the indoor air temperature will be roughly equal to the outdoor air temperature Your insulation could definitely be improved - I live in Scotland and when it's 0C inside it seems to equalise at about 10C simply from having humans in with cooking and lighting. That's still a bit uncomfortably cold so I run the heating, but without good insulation a lot of paid for heat would be escaping.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
I wish I could increase the insulation capabilities of my house. My house is literally stucco on the outside, a paper vapor barrier, and then it's the studs and drywall of my walls. I have no sheathing in between my studs and drywall, so I have massive air flow. I would literally have to rip down all my walls and add a layer of sheathing in order to stop air flow and add insulation, and would cost ~$50,000. Better to just turn on my furnace during the winter months and spend $300/month for 4 months a year.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  The usual method with brick houses in Britain (two layers of bricks, air in between) to improve the insulation is to drill holes and inject foam. It's called cavity wall insulation. I don't know if the method could be applied to a wooden house.
- evjim 9y ago
  You can add dense pack cellulose insulation pretty easily to an uninsulated house. Home depot rents the machines to do it. Use a hole saw at the top of the drywall, shove in the blower tube and fill the cavity up with low cost cellulose.
Xeoncross 9y ago
WARNING: Decreased Oxygen is a problem with well-sealed houses. I live in one. You must have fresh air to avoid CO2 poisoning. If the outside air is a problem, then you either 1) give up on being passive and use conditioning of some form or you 2) begin the suffocation process (starts with poor concentration then moves to headaches). This is one reason for NetZero as an alternative form of building. Even using a solar array with an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) or ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilation) helps a lot if you don't want to run a full compressor-based system.
- brandon272 9y ago
  Is your house more sealed than a typical new home? I live in a new home with an HRV system (all new homes here have them), but I always assumed they were required for issues related to condensation and humidity, not oxygen levels.
  - Xeoncross 9y ago
    My house is much more sealed than a typical new home. Every crack was sprayed with foam and every sheet of OSB/decking was taped, then the house was wrapped in ridge foam panels and taped again. Then it was wrapped in house wrap. The weep holes on the windows, and front door, and the venting for the stove and bathroom are the only source of outside air. There is no attic. http://tinyhousemansion.com/ http://tinyhousemansion.com/ Most homes leak plenty so HRV's are mostly about recovering costs and helping with condensation and humidity since they are designed for cold weather.
    - brandon272 9y ago
      Oh! I watched your tiny home tour a while ago! Yes, I can see why your definition of a well sealed home is likely a lot different than what would be considered "well-sealed" for a typical new home, as well as why concerns about oxygen and CO2 are a factor. I mentioned that HRV's are essentially standard where I live, which is in Canada, so I think our largest concern here has to do with condensation which can quickly become an issue in any non-drafty indoor space in our extremely cold winters. If the HRV is not set high enough in the winter, ice will build up on the inside of our windows and then melt into the wall structure, causing potential issues.

150 points by f_allwein 9y ago

Passive houses got really popular over here (Austria/Germany area). It’s interesting to see it popping up in other parts of the world now too.

baybal2 9y ago
Vancouver is a good place where a case for passive house makes sense: annual temperature and moisture swings are not big. In other cities, not so much. You have to resort to fossil fuel heating anywhere where temperature get below -20 for extended time.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  Passive does not meanno heating. Just way less. Also works with temperature swings as evidented by the amounts of passive houses in the alps.
  - baybal2 9y ago
    A good place for passive house is one where a house can cool down enough during the night and accumulate enough of heat during the day. If the temperature simply goes to -20 and stays there 24/7 for the rest of the seasons. You have to design a house differently. I'm not sure about Alps region. Are conditions there like that?
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Lausanne was like that, not exactly the apps but on the southern nearby end. I venture that most of Europe has mild enough winters and summers outside of the extremes northern and southern parts.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  On the other hand, in nearby Seattle which has similar climate, lots of hydro makes even electric heating fairly affordable. Also it’s in the middle of winter and my window is open, I don’t see a great need for it (maybe in the summer when it heats up and we don’t have AC). I skipped on renting in a passive building in Bellevue I saw this summer because I couldn’t open the windows (well, there was one slip I could open just a little bit). It was a nice apartment at a decent discount as well.
- upofadown 9y ago
  The 10 Watt per square meter standard remains as part of the passive house definition, no matter what the climate. The article mentions this with respect to the large amounts of insulation required in really cold places. So there is no special requirement for fossil fuels.
kalleboo 9y ago
Here in Japan it seems like for a long time it's been a competition to build the LEAST efficient houses possible, but recently it seems like all the ads for home builders are touting "ZEH" - Zero Energy House. Hopefully people actually choose to build these things too.
- hudibras 9y ago
  Coincidentally, from a couple days ago, here's an English language interview with the owner of a passive house in Karuizawa. There are also some general Japan-passive-house-related links in the article. https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/02/07/man-most-energy-efficient-house-japan/1517924026 https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/02/07/man-most-energy-effi...

baybal2 9y ago

>The building is a simple super insulated “dumb building”. No technology or complicated mechanical systems, just a simple envelope, high quality windows and high quality air control through Heat Recovery Ventilation. Walk in and set your heat……that’s it! The money is spent on its simple well-built design, not technology. That is rather sophisticated by North American standards for multi-family housing. I was stunned when I first saw multi-family houses being built in American as a simple wooden, skeletal structure. My choice for something like that would've been steel frame with thermal stops for non-load bearing walls, non-removable formwork out of something like MGO board, and foam concrete pour. Not much separate insulation required for this design.

lostmsu 9y ago
I wish there would be some steel/concrete/brick single family options. Nearly nothing in Seattle area built after 1930.
- huhtenberg 9y ago
  Same in Vancouver. These can be built however and there are architecture firms and construction companies that will gladly take on these projects. The issue, of course, is that it's much cheaper and simpler to build from plywood.
- auxym 9y ago
  I know of at least this Canadian company that specializes in single-family steel-framed design and construction, but it definitely is more on the high-end side of things. https://bonestructure.ca/en/technology/ https://bonestructure.ca/en/technology/
  - tonyarkles 9y ago
    I saw one of their projects going up in Saskatoon. It looked to be an in-fill two-suite house. It went together amazingly fast, and from what I could tell it was very well built. The Bone "system" they've put together is pretty cool too; all of the major pieces come on a truck pre-cut and then assembled on-site. It reminded me of Meccano.

def- 9y ago

Last summer I lived in the largest passive house settlement in the world, in Heidelberg, Germany, and the main complaint is the heat in the summer. Even with cooling down the apartment to 20°C with open windows all night, and closed windows and window blinds all day, the apartment would be back at 28°C when returning after work. Basically it is too hot in the apartment from May to September. In a survey nearly 60% of the people living there complained that it is too hot in summers, so it doesn't seem to be an isolated problem to the specific building I lived in.

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
I think that is more an effect of Germans hating air conditions.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I think the point of a passive building is that it shouldn't need air conditioning.
  - wheresmyusern 9y ago
    no, this is not the point of passive houses. it is a contradiction, but the point is to reduce hvac use as much as possible. you will always need hvac for perfect results because it is impossible to build a perfect hrv system. its impossible to insulate perfectly. there will always be heat leaking from the system. in some extreme cases people can do away with their hvac completely but its difficult and expensive.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Living in Germany, I have not seen a single household with air conditioning in my life. Even in Italy and Spain, it’s extremely rare. As long as you don’t use plywood, it’s perfectly possible to live without ac.
      - wheresmyusern 9y ago

f_allwein 9y ago

I think this is pretty much the way to go in terms of future housing - obviously, adapting to local climate and needs. I’m surprised that so many passive/ ecological houses are designed for single families, which must be a poor use of resources and land (in most places).

swampthinker 9y ago

My previous startup was an API that would give homes an energy efficiency letter grade along with a bill estimate to embedded in real estate websites. While it failed for a host of issues, one that stood out in my head was how little people valued efficiency over renewables. Generally speaking, money invested in improving building efficiency will have a better carbon and financial payback than any form of solar, wind, or hydro. And yet, homeowners will get solar panels before they insulate their walls.

hueving 9y ago
Nobody cares if you brag about nice insulation. It doesn't have the same social value as solar panels.
- epmaybe 9y ago
  Then hire a marketing team to make it sexier.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Was this an American centric startup? I know in especially Germany and probably much of Europe building efficiency is a big deal, to the extent that things like smaller windows are prioritized.
- ipsi 9y ago
  Yeah - similar information sometimes (I had to check several listings before I found one with this info) exists when looking for flats in Germany. See, e.g., https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/96661853?referrer=RESULT_LIST_LISTING&navigationServiceUrl=%2FSuche%2Fcontroller%2FexposeNavigation%2Fnavigate.go%3FsearchUrl%3D%2FSuche%2FS-T%2FWohnung-Miete%2FUmkreissuche%2FM_fcnchen_2dMaxvorstadt%2F80335%2F114221%2F2028686%2FSeidlstra_dfe%2F-%2F20%2F3%2C00-%26exposeId%3D96661853&navigationHasPrev=true&navigationHasNext=true&navigationBarType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=4c1f5bf4-5e75-33dd-9c57-cb1c147d1606#/ https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/96661853?referrer=RE... Under "Bausubstanz & Energieausweis" it lists the energy required to heat the apartment in kWh/m^2. (I don't live in Germany, but have been considering moving).

maxsilver 9y ago

From the article's description, apparently "Passive House" means "no cooling whatsoever", which explains why it's not common in the US. Don't get me wrong, we need stronger building standards and better insulation. Especially in the US, where we let literally any hollow twig+glue structure stand with essentially no quality checks whatsoever. But the reason everyone "throws a solar panel on top to get Net Zero", is because it gives you cheap green electricity to run both heat and Air Conditioning. There are precious few places you could build this thing in the US where it won't be annoyingly hot to live in for at least 3+ months every year. Even in Michigan, a building is essentially broken if it doesn't have AC, if not for the heat then to at least remove the moisture / humidity / condensation built up.

willyt 9y ago
You don't need AC to remove humidity. MVHR removes it and dumps it into the drains when the warm outgoing air goes through the air to air heat exchanger to warm up the incoming air.
- maxsilver 9y ago
  Then where does the heat from your dehumidifier go? MVHR seems to assume outside air is always cooler and fresher than inside air, and uses that for free cooling. Which is great for like 70% of the time. But what about the ~30% of time when it isn't there.
  - dangravell 9y ago
    It doesn't assume that. MVHR has a bypass to disable the heat exchanger if that's important. You don't have a dehumidifier. One of the biggest benefits of fabric first is the reduction in complexity.
    - falcolas 9y ago
      If you don't have a dehumidifier, all of those big bags of mostly water that inhabit the building will expel some of that water with every breath, and going to increase the humidity fairly noticeably. I'm also going to guess that the MVHR is also not 100% efficient. It's either going to create heat to completely cool down the incoming air (hey, look, an AC, complete with dehumidification), or the incoming air is going to average out with the out going air, creating an increase in temperature. Plus, all of those bags of mostly water are going to be expelling heat, too.

vanderZwan 9y ago

Even though better energy efficiency is great, the video highlights how policy for efficient housing requires minimising draft, which implies convection heating. This means that (at least on this topic) policy is still not addressing the really fundamental problems. To give an analogy: we did not get the modern computer by building a better vacuum tube, we did it by switching to an entirely different technology. Kris de Decker has written extensively on this topic: why convection heating is problematic, which alternatives exist, and the problems with focusing exclusively on energy efficiency[0][1][2][3]. In short: - On a meta-level, the actual problem we are trying to solve is not one of heating. Heating is a solution. The problem we are solving is how to stay warm. Framing it this way opens up entirely new options to explore. - Air is a natural insulator with low thermal capacity, so an incredibly inefficient transport medium of heat. When heating up a cold room, the ambient air may heat up quickly, but the objects in a room can stay cold for very long. - Convection heating requires that the heated air does not escape the room, so we end up with a trade-off between heating and fresh air. Personal anecdote related to this: I live in house that is so well-insulated that I cannot sleep with the window closed, feeling exhausted and out of breath in the morning (likely more due to the rise of CO2 than a lack of oxygen, but the result is the same). These days I sleep with the window open, under three layers of blankets, and the heating to a bare minimum. - Convection heating also heats up the entire space, which is really wasteful: we really only care about heating the humans and other living things inside this space. To point out how ridiculous this really is: hot air naturally rises to the ceiling first, where nobody needs it. (admittedly, when a space remains damp and cold for a very long period of time, there is the problem of mould to consider. There are solutions for that, and they are more sustainable than wasting heat with convection heating) - Because the heat in the air is absorbed at the windows, we have to put the convection heater next to it to get an even heat gradient in the room. So in other words: we put our heat source right next to the biggest heat-sink in the room. Other methods of staying warm, like radiant heating or electrically heated clothing (yes, this exists) can bypass most if not all of these issues. The problem is that we are trying to make modern lifestyle more efficient without radically questioning the lifestyle itself. Elizabeth Shove had a good paper on this problem, although it can get quite dense[4]. Kris de Decker has a more accessible summary of it[3]. I'll highlight some stuff from Shove's paper: > Programmes of energy efficiency are politically uncontroversial precisely because they take current interpretations of ‘service’ for granted. But in normalizing specific definitions of service, methods of evaluating efficiency carry normative assumptions about ‘need’ forward, invisibly bedding them into future programmes of research and development. > In conclusion, the un-reflexive pursuit of energy efficiency is problematic not because it does not work, or because the benefits are absorbed elsewhere, as the rebound argument suggests, but because it does work– via the necessary concept of equivalence of service – to sustain, perhaps escalate but never undermine [...] increasingly energy-intensive ways of life. > In response, it is tempting to call for greater interdisciplinarity, and new ideas are definitely needed. However, as Daniels and Rose perceptively observed, it is no accident that the field of energy efficiency is ‘devoid of any vision of history’ (Daniels & Rose, 1982) This is not something that can be fixed since it is an unavoidable consequence of how programmes of efficiency are conceptualized. In the end, it is impossible to imagine how organizations like the IEA, the EU or the UK Committee on Climate Change might come to recognize and explicitly evaluate their own role in making and shaping present and future ‘needs’. At the same time, and as historians might well point out, the ambition of reproducing ‘present’ standards of living, now and in the years ahead, is doomed to fail. Better energy efficiency is important, but only one path. And on it's own, it will be as effective as insisting on building smaller vacuum tubes. [0] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/radiant-and-conductive-heating-systems.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/radiant-and-conductiv... [1] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html [2] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/11/heat-your-clothes-not-your-house.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/11/heat-your-clothes-not... [3] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.1361746 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.13... [4] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-efficiency.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-e...

deleted 9y ago

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Tharkun 9y ago

Tangentially related anecdote: I remain convinced that it's the occupant, not the building that matters. I heat my uninsulated 1910 era flat for about ~150EUR/year. Of that 150 about 100 goes to hot water (showers, mostly). How? By wearing clothes in winter. Sometimes a blanket if it gets particularly cold. In winter my indoor air temperature is around 14°C, which is plenty when you're wearing clothes. Buying extra insulation, or a "smart thermostat" or any other "energy saving" thingamajig would cost a lot more than the payoff would ever be.

lancebeet 9y ago
Does everyone in the house do this or just you? Apartments are usually heated by neighboring apartments, which means even if you turn off your heating, the temperature won't drop too low unless your neighbors do it too.
ipsi 9y ago
I can only assume you live somewhere pretty warm - if I don't have the heaters on in my apartment, the indoor air temperature will be roughly equal to the outdoor air temperature, which is frequently <5°C in winter. No amount of clothing is going to make that comfortable or healthy to live in. I don't know how much it costs to heat my place, since I only have storage heaters, so it all gets merged in with the rest of my electricity usage.
- Tharkun 9y ago
  If you're interested in figuring out the costs, they sell devices —— called calorimeters i think -- which you can stick on the storage heaters and will make pretty decent estimates of the amount of energy released.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > the indoor air temperature will be roughly equal to the outdoor air temperature Your insulation could definitely be improved - I live in Scotland and when it's 0C inside it seems to equalise at about 10C simply from having humans in with cooking and lighting. That's still a bit uncomfortably cold so I run the heating, but without good insulation a lot of paid for heat would be escaping.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

I wish I could increase the insulation capabilities of my house. My house is literally stucco on the outside, a paper vapor barrier, and then it's the studs and drywall of my walls. I have no sheathing in between my studs and drywall, so I have massive air flow. I would literally have to rip down all my walls and add a layer of sheathing in order to stop air flow and add insulation, and would cost ~$50,000. Better to just turn on my furnace during the winter months and spend $300/month for 4 months a year.

Symbiote 9y ago
The usual method with brick houses in Britain (two layers of bricks, air in between) to improve the insulation is to drill holes and inject foam. It's called cavity wall insulation. I don't know if the method could be applied to a wooden house.
evjim 9y ago
You can add dense pack cellulose insulation pretty easily to an uninsulated house. Home depot rents the machines to do it. Use a hole saw at the top of the drywall, shove in the blower tube and fill the cavity up with low cost cellulose.

Xeoncross 9y ago

WARNING: Decreased Oxygen is a problem with well-sealed houses. I live in one. You must have fresh air to avoid CO2 poisoning. If the outside air is a problem, then you either 1) give up on being passive and use conditioning of some form or you 2) begin the suffocation process (starts with poor concentration then moves to headaches). This is one reason for NetZero as an alternative form of building. Even using a solar array with an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) or ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilation) helps a lot if you don't want to run a full compressor-based system.

brandon272 9y ago
Is your house more sealed than a typical new home? I live in a new home with an HRV system (all new homes here have them), but I always assumed they were required for issues related to condensation and humidity, not oxygen levels.
- Xeoncross 9y ago
  My house is much more sealed than a typical new home. Every crack was sprayed with foam and every sheet of OSB/decking was taped, then the house was wrapped in ridge foam panels and taped again. Then it was wrapped in house wrap. The weep holes on the windows, and front door, and the venting for the stove and bathroom are the only source of outside air. There is no attic. http://tinyhousemansion.com/ http://tinyhousemansion.com/ Most homes leak plenty so HRV's are mostly about recovering costs and helping with condensation and humidity since they are designed for cold weather.
  - brandon272 9y ago
    Oh! I watched your tiny home tour a while ago! Yes, I can see why your definition of a well sealed home is likely a lot different than what would be considered "well-sealed" for a typical new home, as well as why concerns about oxygen and CO2 are a factor. I mentioned that HRV's are essentially standard where I live, which is in Canada, so I think our largest concern here has to do with condensation which can quickly become an issue in any non-drafty indoor space in our extremely cold winters. If the HRV is not set high enough in the winter, ice will build up on the inside of our windows and then melt into the wall structure, causing potential issues.