INSIDE a DIY Deep Energy Retrofit (a Passive House EnerPHit)

Maybe you've dreamt of doing your own DIY Passive House retrofit, or maybe you're knee-deep in your own deep energy retrofit right now. We're excited to share the story of Es Tresidder and the DIY retrofit of his family's home in the Western highlands of Scotland. While Es *is* a PH consultant, he was *not* a builder or an experienced DIY'er before this project, so he had a serious learning curve on this project. He shares how that went and how he pulled off this all-electric EnerPhit retrofit for this project.

[smaloneytuba]

Wow. My 1961 house in the Midwestern United States wouldn’t need quite this much work but this was an incredible look at a very interesting project.

[Tom-Lahaye]

It turned from the typical cold and mouldy Scottish house into a real gem, well worth the effort.
The real gain is not just in the savings made on heating, but the gain in comfort.
I have insulated my roofs and exterior walls from the outside, and despite having a rather large property of 210m² of living space plus an accessible attic I do just use 2-2, 5kW of heat at an average 24 hour temperature of 6°C to heat living room and kitchen up to 20°C and the other rooms to 17-19°C. Upstairs no heating is needed at this outside temperature to keep these room temperatures.
That's a far cry from the 9-9, 5kW needed on average during the heating season in the past and then the master bedroom would still be freezing cold in winter with the radiator on, room temperatures were deliberately set lower to get not bankrupt on the gas bills .
I also changed from a gas boiler to air to air heat pumps (needed more than one because of the size of the house) and I think the same heat pump water heater as in the video.

[Glynchbrook]

Very interesting. Particularly the hemp and jute with smart vapour barriers, I'll need to do some research on those. We used to build timber frame houses like that-ish when I was younger, they're ubiqutous in Scotland. It's very dissapointing seeing the bodgery and lack of ventialtion and vapour barriers. Scottish carpenters and joiners take that very seriously normally, particularly in such an exposed location beside Ben Nevis!

[ktt-pkex]

Thank you Es for sharing this PH project. Really useful as starting to looks at this option with a timber framed building in Brisbane Aust.

[nomatesman]

Enjoyed this and was very useful given I'm thinking about doing something similar. Woud be great if you could share how much it cost for the whole project.

[theoldbuzzard]

Enjoyed that. Having that view of the Ben! How could you think of moving?
I am bit by bit insulating the walls of my solid walled brick built Victorian terrace in Sheffield.

[dne]

Great job and excellent video. I'm actually quite surprised that the single heat source in the dining room heats the whole house but I suppose that's down to the efficiency of the sealing and insulation and the passive heating design

[AlisonSheills]

Lovely video and congratulations on this great project. Can anyone tell me the exact heat pump cylinder used for the hot water - I can see it's Vaillant but what type of Vaillant?

[David-blbt]

An interesting, informative and inspirational video.

It would have been good if you could have shared the overall cost of this project.

[jacksmith]

Stupid question. How does those tapes glue hold on for 10-20 years to keep the air tightness as good as it was in the beginning?

[christianu]

Can you get EnerPHit certifications if you do it yourself without being a Passivhaus tradesmen? Was this house certified?

[davidcassidy]

Surprised the hot water air source heat pump isn't using the output from the MHRV as its source of heat.

[markthomasson]

Ed, is that what they call a mini split heat pump? Make and model?
How noisy is the internal unit.
Is it ok in freezing weather.
I am considering one in my house in Kinlochleven
Thanks

[xxwookey]

Saves a fortune over paying builders to do it all, and ensures things get done properly (but does take up an awful lot of weekends, so has taken years here, with a couple of major aspects each year). It's very tiresome that all government help for retrofit is not available to DIYers, only companies. Govt doesn't actually care about fixing the buildings - it only cares about jobs. But it could get 3 times as many buildings done for the same money if it let DIYers use grants on materials and equipment.

[Allegedlyright]

Makes sense my heat pump sits outside where it is very cold in the winter and when the pump freezes up it takes the heat from the house and pumps it outside to unfreeze it.Surprise surprise it costs a complete fortune to run.I notice heat loss calculations weren’t mentioned and all the excuses that heat pump guys use to dispel why it’s so unaffordable.Funny that

[thomasschafer]

😅😅 sorry. But 100mm inside brings the condenswatterpoint inside the construction. If now warm air from inside comes to this point .more condenswater. Airtight is 100% important. 👎👎🇩🇪. German word. Can't make a hero in Derby from a donkey. 😅😅