90% Utility Bill Reduction AND Slow Down Climate Change--Europe's Passive House Energy Efficiency Building Standard by Danny “Sun� Tseng (shareable/textable link for online version: tinyurl.com/IntroToPassiveHouse)
I first learned about the world's most-stringent, voluntary, energy efficiency building standard called "Passive House" by accident while searching for energysaving tips to upload to my "Solar For Dummies" YouTube video channel (see: tinyurl.com/Solar4Dummies) as part of my "Solar Foundations" series since I had recently come across the astonishing facts that buildings use up around 70% of electricity in the USA and how over 61% of the energy from a lump of coal never even makes it from the coal-fired power plant to our electrical meters and outlet plugs as shown in this "Lost In Transmission--From Plant to Plug" video: tinyurl.com/WastefulGridPower. What blew me away and got me extremely excited about the Passive House standard was that a building (applies mostly to new construction but can also apply to refurbishments/retrofits as well as for some types of commercial buildings) built to this standard could reduce its total energy use by up to 90% -- at least in colder, non-subtropical climates like mine here in South Florida -- without any renewable energy sources such as from solar photovoltaics or wind turbines.
The idea of Passive House was co-created by Wolfgang Feist of the Institute for Housing and the Environment, Darmstadt, Germany around 1988. The standard is centered around five core principles: 1. optimized building orientation (or passive solar design) 2. super insulation with a special emphasis on absolutely no thermal bridges (learn more at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_bridge) 3. super airtightness (or having a continuous air-sealed layer) 4. balanced ventilation with either an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) or Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) and 5. ultra energy-efficient windows. For a 90-second video summary of these key points, visit: tinyurl.com/WhatIsPassiveHouse. Besides resulting in an ultra high-performing buildings--energy-wise--initial capital costs aren't usually more than 3% to 10% above the cost for a comparable, conventionally-built structure. This premium in building material and equipment is easily and quickly made-up with significantly reduced on-going, lifetime utility expenses--not to mention improved occupant comfort and health because of better indoor air quality (with regular maintenance of any filters on the ERV or HRV and assuming no indoor materials were selected that out-gas a lot of harmful volatile organic compounds). So simple to understand and, yet, not very well-known among the general public here in the USA, but this is soon changing as Passive House has already taken root in Urbana, Illinois with the building of Katrin Klingenberg's 2003 passive home prototype and the creation of the Passive House Institute United States (PHIUS) in 2007--with the "capital" of Passive House in America possibly being in Brooklyn Heights, New York, since there's so many past, current, and future passive house projects going on there--retrofits as well as new construction. (Read about it at: cityrealty.com/nyc/market-insight/features/future-nyc/the-ultimate-map-nyc039spassive-house-movement-includes-32-energy-efficient-overachievers-works/13743) If you'd like to learn more about this truly remarkable but simple building standard AND save our planet "before it's too late," "SHARE" this article and look around: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house and the Passive House Institute US's website at: phius.org/home-page. For a list of products and services that will help you get to "net (energy) zero," view our social media page at: facebook.com/groups/floridaenergyandsun/about/ as well as our complimentary "10 Energy & $$$-Saving Tips" guide at: tinyurl.com/10EnergySavingTips (a $10,000 value).