In this world, the climate is ever changing. With that comes increasing concerns about energy conservation for long term sustainability. Passive house design has revealed itself as an effective solution to building long lasting, energy-efficient homes in a range of climates. The passive house design standard, which originated in Germany in the late 20th century, focuses on reducing a building’s energy consumption to a minimum, while promising a high level of comfort for those who call it home.
Passive houses are designed to work with natural renewable resources, such as the sun, wind, and the earth’s thermal ground as a heat source. Tanja Vidovic was joined by Nicolette Tiedemann on the Sustainable Living Show, to discuss what it takes to build a home that is able to heat and cool itself with minimal intervention.
Nicolette was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany where she studied architecture at the University of Hamburg, Tec School Buxtehude, and University of Berlin. Soon after graduating, Nicolette started working as an architect in her hometown, where she quickly utilized the concepts of passive house design. In 1991 Nicolette was a part of a team of architects and city planners, who designed and built one of the early eco friendly and low energy communities. Nicolette explains,“the general rule is everyone wants to save energy, so they put the methods in the building codes now, so we have to lower our footprint.”
The concept of passive designed houses was not new in 1991. “Zero energy output is nothing new. People in the 1800’s made a ship and traveled to the Arctic. They were able to make the ship so insulated and warm that they were happy to live from 1883 to 1895.” Energy independence is important to a self-sustaining community, no matter how large. Nicolette points out that, “we don’t want to be dependent on Russia, and we want to be self-sustaining, so they made passive design the standard of home building in my hometown in Germany.”
The project of building passive houses in this community, was dedicated to sampling different construction methods and technologies, and then critiquing their performance, caught the attention of the local government. The government then continued to follow up on the results over the years. Nicolette explained that in this study, some designs were better, and some didn’t measure up. Mistakes are not taken easily by the passive houses. It showed that some builders had shortcomings. Tiedemann explains, “the idea was good, but it was not executed. Some builders say they can do it, consider themselves a master at building, but then mistakes happen. Several different architects did their own design, but they had to follow the standard codes.”
There are certain telltale signs that something went wrong, and needs to be addressed. One thing is the potential for mold. Nicolette says that “you have to measure the moisture content to make sure air quality is good. You have to be very specific and very observant to see where the mistakes are. If you go in and smell a little bit of muskyness, you have to find and address the problems. And you need to know where the mistakes could possibly be.”
The core principles that define a passive house tend to stay the same across the board, even if you change the design. One of the primary features of a passive house is its exceptionally thick insulation. Nicolette specifies that “most of the walls in Germany are 1 ft thick. In the 1970s they tried to make the walls thinner, and it didn’t work.” High-quality insulation installations are used in not only the walls, but also the roof, and crawl spaces to minimize heat loss in the winter and reduce heat gain in the summer, creating an envelope that helps the house remain at a constant comfortable temperature. “The difference between a passive house and a normal house, is the normal house is heavily electric dependent on climate control, and a passive house collects as much unpaid energy from the sun, earth, ground.. wherever they can get it without paying a global company.”
Nicolette offers another of the basic principles of passive house design: the direction of the house. You orient the building towards the South with the main windows, and no windows on the North side. If you do have windows on the North, make them as small as you can. The location of the South facing windows are equally important to just having them there. ” Also, upgrading your windows is vital. Choose windows with 3 or 5 pane glass, and “you will make such a difference”.
Passive houses are also designed to be airtight, meaning that there are very few gaps or cracks where air can leak in or out. This step in airtightness prevents heat loss, reduces drafts, and improves indoor air quality. By making the house as airtight as possible, you will then need technical ventilation which will assist you in the need to have healthy air movement throughout.
Heating water with solar is a great option in a passive house, if you have the roof space. Water heaters can take up a significant percentage of your total daily energy usage. “In my area, I wanted to be independent from any electric company. I heated my water through heated pipes that you put on your roof. I used a 2 meter long pipe. It was a closed water pipe that gets heated up, and a pump brought the heated water down. This makes it so there is less of a difference of the water temperature when having to heat it up to the desired daily warmth. “Every degree that you gain is less energy you have to use. Even in winter, I would get 90*F water temperature just from having the water going through the pipes on my roof.”
Lastly, the use of natural or man-made shade structures is an environmentally sustainable option for cooling in the summer months. In warmer areas, careful shading (using eaves, overhangs, or vegetation) prevents overheating, maintaining a balance of light and temperature.
Nicolette explains that building a house using passive design will allow the home to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature year-round without relying heavily on traditional energy dependent heating and cooling methods. Most people love the climate of a passive designed house, but having higher upfront costs is an obstacle to overcome. Although a larger amount of higher quality building materials is needed up front, by reducing the demand for constant fossil fuels and instead relying on natural resources like sunlight and wind, passive houses lower a household’s carbon footprint and the cost of bills over the years.
Although this type of construction has been around for over 100 years, because of the higher upfront costs, it has not gained popularity, but Tiedemann believes passive house design can revolutionize the way we think about energy use in residential buildings.
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