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>Houses built to the German Passivhaus standard would do just fine in Ohio. I used to live in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, so I should know. There was one Min
by ryanmercer 8y ago
>Houses built to the German Passivhaus standard would do just fine in Ohio. I used to live in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, so I should know. There was one Minnesota church built with polystyrene panels that had to start running air conditioning in the middle of winter, the insulation was so good.
You'd have to level most structures and rebuild from scratch to manage that in large parts of North America to make a difference.
Never mind the fact heaters aren't the only thing that use electricity at night.
- stcredzero 8y agoYou'd have to level most structures and rebuild from scratch to manage that in large parts of North America to make a difference. New construction built like this is a good start. heaters aren't the only thing that use electricity at night Know your orders of magnitude. Resistive heating is just ridiculous. Heat exchangers are much better, but are like running Air Conditioners. In a passivhaus, my wife and I would be running a laptop, a clock, and the air filtration/exchanger, and that's it. Heating water is one of the big energy users, but Solar Water preheat based on heat pipes even works a treat in cloudy, chilly old England.
- gascan 8y agoThe biggest challenge probably being the 2x4 walls... if there's one code change to future-proof today's new housing stock, it might be adding 2 inches to the walls, either with 2x6 studs or 2 inches of rigid foam, for R-20 or so. Much of the rest is possible to retrofit, though not always easy. Actually, while we're on the subject, subslab insulation might be another.