Passive House = 90% Home Energy Reduction!

Passive House is an incredible building standard for designing and certifying energy efficient buildings (homes, schools, hospitals, offices, etc.). Using the 5 green building techniques explained in this video, Passive Houses need only 10% of the energy that a conventional home uses (that's a 90% energy saving!).

We met up with Alex and Sandra from BCIT's High Performance Building Lab in Vancouver, Canada to learn about the different ways that a home can be built to use less energy. They're pretty simple to understand and don't cost much more than a typical new build:

- Highly insulated building envelope
- High performance triple glazed windows
- Elimination of thermal bridges
- Continuous air sealed layer
- Heat recovery ventilation

The building lab at BCIT is a really exciting new space where tradespeople can come to learn about green building techniques. To learn more, check out this link to their website:

We want to say an extra special thank you to Sandra and Alex for taking time to show us how all of these building techniques worked (late into the evening!). We had a blast and learned so much!

Sandra Rohler
Passive House Instructor
BCIT High Performance Building Lab
Passive House Canada

Alexandre Hébert
Manager, Zero Energy Buildings, BCIT

Thanks for watching!

Mat & Danielle

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VIDEO CREDITS
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Music & Song Credits:
All music in this video was composed, performed, and recorded by Mat of Exploring Alternatives.

Editing Credits:
Mat and Danielle of Exploring Alternatives

Filming Credits:
Mat of Exploring Alternatives

[exploranator]

Her looks, demeanor and voice are just so peaceful.

[DougGrinbergs]

2:20 1. Highly insulated building envelope. 5:20 2. Continuous air-sealed layer. 7:00 3. Eliminate thermal bridges. 8:04 4. Heat recovery ventilation. 9:27 5. High performance glazing.

[silasjohannesen]

Fun to see...
Here in Denmark, carpenters and other craftsmen are trained in energy saving construction. 😀

[eazymoney_]

Took me days to watch this video because the womans voice was so soothing and kept putting me to sleep

[eustache_dauger]

How about passive house design in the equatorial area where the aim is to reduce energy depency on cooling (instead of heating) when the climate is hot & humid?

[tjam]

Nice presentation! One thing I notice is that they keep mentioning where they are trying to keep heat IN the building. This is true in a colder climate. I live in the desert (Phoenix Arizona) where the opposite is true most of the year. This same passive house building techniques would apply here too. They should mention that as well ;-)

[michaelcsutton]

Great video. House construction in Australia is a joke. Passive house design is key to our sustainability.

[fiendeng]

That was Siiiick glad to see how true professionals chasing excellence is alive and the passion for excellence

[maghouinbeg]

Fascinating. I'd love to take an on-line course on this so I can really get to grips with the ideas.

[MegaZedlav]

This was needed hopefully it becomes a world standard!

[motherdaughtersister]

Fascinating. She provided great explanations, even I could understand! :) Thank you for sharing.

[grahamborgdorff]

Above Board Carpentry in Minden, Ontario has adopted this as our target market. What is great is that we can build these homes for nearly the exact same as a conventional home.

[ek]

Sandra Rohler is amazing in her ability to convey the meaning of Passive houses.

[siriosstar]

There are variations of passivhaus in europe . For example, i have a blockhaus that has 13.5 cm blocks/logs and 14 cm holz insulation panels with 3 cm thick lattung / furring strips over the insulation panels with 2.5 thick wood panels mounted on the furring strips. Windows are triple pane tilt and turn.
People also use CLT panels in place of logs . All building materials are non off gassing as well as furniture, bedding, drapes rugs etc which are from natural fibers . We did this because we don't have a heat recovery system. We just open windows in the morning in the bedroom for a few minutes and while cooking. The loss of heat is not an issue because we have a two ton speckstein offen / soapstone masonry oven and have tons of available wood to burn. The oven/ stove is heated once a day in very cold weather for about two hours and then holds and gives off that heat for about 24 hours. It heats the entire house of over 3 thousand square feet to a comfortable seventy degrees or more.

[PaulLadendorf]

Thanks for this vid. At 1:30 she says upfront labor is 3 to 10% more than conventional construction. I think most people would also like to know the extra material cost as well.

[vickiwhite]

I am so excited about this concept! I am a Realtor in Dallas, Texas.  I have the First Certified Passive House in Texas listed.  Where the requirement for certification is 0.6 ACH, my listing has 0.392 ACH.  It is awesome.  I hope it catches on here!  It would make the world a better place if this became the standard.

[cliffp.]

Great tutorial and a lovely teacher, I'd sit contentedly in her class every day.

[christinaelliott]

I absolutely love this video. A look into the inner workings of various surfaces for insulation purposes and the mechanization/electronic support to maintain it is very helpful and long awaited. Thank you!

[hppynd]

This will be the mandatory standard for new buildings in the EU in a couple of years actually. I do believe that you can take it a step further by adding solar pannels which could potentially provide all the energy you need to heat and ventilate your house too. I love the video, btw, very informative, thanks!

[raymulvey]

I don’t recall the name of the woman engineer doing most of the presentation/demonstration, but she’s incredible! He approach to explaining things was fantastic and made the building techniques very understandable. Just amazing!