Her looks, demeanor and voice are just so peaceful.

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

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.

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

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

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?

This was needed hopefully it becomes a world standard!

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

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!

Thanks! Great topic! More of this please! And congratulations to all of you! ;)

So cool and amazing! I had no idea you could make a building so energy efficient. Thanks for sharing.

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

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

Very clear presentation. Thanks.

Succinct and totally clear. Very well done.

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.

Great video, very informative! Well produced video!

Good video. Recent home built in Rochester, MN IS 0.7 ACH combined with solar gain and it rocks!

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.

Some great info here! Here at Westeck we are happy to have joined the Passive House movement!

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

Thank you for the incredible videos. Quality stuff.

That was really neat and informative. Thank you.

So fascinating and informative!

Really dense video with great information. Great job.

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 ;-)

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

great video as always, best quality videos 👌

That's great, thanks for sharing!

Exceptional, thank you to all involved

Super informative video. Plus i could listen to that lady explain this stuff all day.

Was building one a week back in the 90s with the crew when i first started work after school over here in Germany.

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.

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.

Excellent video.

7:55, even if you offset your studs in two different layers, it is still a thermal bridge. Just less bad. Usually it is good enough. Depends on the properties of what is the middle layer that studs on both sides connect to. Other option is uniform insulation on external walls, with no seams or penetrations. This is commonly done in Europe.

Thanks for sharing this video....very informational.

Thank you for creating that video. So useful an interesting!

We really enjoyed your video thanks for sharing

For the first time it makes sense how you save and recover energy

Love it can't wait to build one.

_To everyone interested on the matter, here is a short global overview with parallels to the situation in France (not trying to sell it, I just think the history of one country makes a more understandable example for picturing the global situation, and France's history on the subject is the only one I really know about):_ *Passive housing and Passivhaus* * Some techniques for passive housing might be new, but it has been around for as long as traditional housing, which always had had techniques for keeping the cold or the heat outside. You can summarize the idea by thinking of it as a way to keep the inside temperature independent from the outside temperature, and taking advantage of the sun for heating and of the earth for regulating the inside temperature. * The _Passivhaus_ label is most probably what popularized the concept in its modern meaning. The research started in response to the oil crisis of 1973, the biggest advance upon traditional construction being the findings about the importance of air tightness (mostly thanks to swede researchers). The first project was constructed in 1990 in Darmstadt, Germany, and * The label and its techniques became quickly widespread in German-speaking and Scandinavian countries. It is interesting to note that the industrial standards in those countries also evolved to answer the demand (e.g. for windows). This means that passive construction technology is now quite mainstream and more affordable there than it is in country where the demand is more recent. Find a historical review here : passipedia.org/basics/the_passive_house_-_historical_review * _If you take the example of France, the RT1974 (thermal regulation of 1974) was also a response to the oil crisis_ *What's next?* 1) NZEBs (Nearly zero-energy buildings) * European Union is asking its member countries to to draw up national plans to increase the number of Nearly zero-energy buildings : the "Energy Performance of Buildings Directive" requires all new buildings to be NZEBs by the end of 2018 for public buildings and by the end of 2020 for all other buildings. * _If you take the example of France, the RT2012 (thermal regulation of 2012) is already trying to tackle this matter_ 2) ZEBs and Energy-plus housing * Zero-energy housing means that there is 0 energy input * In variable climate zones, this is very hard to achieve which is why the needed energy compensation is produced by (often local) renewable energy. For the house never to lack energy, these renewable energy sources often have a higher mean production than the building would actually need (e.g. solar panels will work every day even if you only need them in winter). This leeds to a new, localized energy management which can allow energy use for other uses, mostly transport (electric cars). This concept is called Energy-Plus housing. * _If you take the example of France, the RT2020 (thermal regulation of 2020) is supposed to make Energy-plus housing the new national standard._ If all of this stuff seems interesting to you, you might want to take a look at other widespread labels, such as : LEEDS, MINERGIE-P, 2000W Society _I guess the reason for me to write all of this is my frustration when I read most of the comments around here :_ -> _Yes, passive houses are great ; Yes they should become standards, but as a matter of fact they already became standards in some countries and are already being reviewed for better/stronger ones ; they are far from being a new revolutionary technology._ -> _Labels but mainly regulation are a very important part of these evolutions, and it is crucial for any country to make them intelligently. This means setting the right requirements and adapting to the climate, and still allowing room for further innovation and experimentation._ -> _If you don't have a problem with heating but with cooling, the same methods apply, but your building orientation (the way you use the sun as heating source) will change_ -> _Higher construction prices are in no way a counter argument when you can spend less energy over the full lifetime of a project ; only the overproduction of grey energy or new pollutants could be arguments against higher performance insulation_ Sorry for the long comment... Last but not least, I want to thank Exploring Alternatives for their awesome channel and the subjects of their videos. Keep it coming guys!

This video is very helpfull... tnxx

Thank you for sharing this video. I was wondering if something similar is being developed for tropical countries where cooling is more important than heating--- the sun shines 95% of the time.

great site… I would like to share you should add a tightly fitting piece of Masonite siding into all the window sills under the membrane to create a pitched water shed for a rock solid water proofing

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!

Fascinating!

i feel like i want to go straight away to their workshop to learn more!

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!

This was really helpful and I'm curious how can we adapt some of these passive house ideas to our existing homes, maybe you folks can share links to other videos or sites, thank you.

Living in Northern Ontario, this style of home build is a must! We currently live in a 100-year old+ house and heating is a nightmare. We have been working at implementing these same principles on the envelope renovation and we have noticed a massive difference! Is it possible to find out what brand of barrier tape the black tape is? It looks like fabric? Maybe I am wrong. Thanks!

Very cool information!

That was awesome!

Great Video

I live in a passive house since 2006. And I really don’t understand why so many people still build houses with a chimney

Would love to see a video with helpful information on the best ways to retrofit an old home with energy savings ideas.

learned about passive houses in my secondary education almost 15 years ago and the concept was not super new then, not really much that can change aside from reducing the production cost of the materials to make the early investment pay off sooner. Windows are a interresting part, early on they were a huge heat loss due to not beeing air tight, then they became air tight and led to condensate building and therefore mold creation and in the passive house you have the air tight windowframes and avoid the mold with the air ventilation system. I kind of miss the mass that stores energy here, like for example a thick brick wall in the center of the house, that gets light through the south windows in winter. but maybe storing all the energy in the air is enough if you have enough insulation, since simply people and animals beeing in the house create heat. in school we were joking to put a 20cm (~8") mirror around the walls on floor level, so the cats will get scared all day and run around to create heat^^. still i prefer building a earthship someday though the passive house can tackle the regulation jungle far better.

This feels like one of those videos you see in orientation at a new job.

HEy i learned this at school, very valid :)

I wish I could finish the half constructed house that my dad left me this way. For the lower part first two floors its mostly 15 year old aerated concrete and basically wood + rock wool for the top two floors and attic. Yes our house is humongous and I have what so ever 0 idea what my dad was thinking when he started building a house this large in his mid 50s... lol

So fascinating

Saving energy saves money on utilities and makes a home more comfortable.

My dream would be to build a passive and eco friendly home. 😍

How good are these homes for cooling? And what are your thoughts on concrete homes

Smart lady.

Videos like these make me wish my brain was half as active and smart as these people.

This is fantastic! I really would like to know how much more expensive a passive house construction would be in comparison to an identical conventional construction with the same layout.

I've been reading about energy and rather than passive house technologies it's all about various sources of energy and how we can convert it to electricity, store it, transport it, and use it in the home. In my reading/KZfaq-viewing I recall that a huge percentage of electricity is lost as heat to the air at the generation plant or transporting it or in the home. Though she said heating the passive house can be done much more cheaply than usual, she didn't discuss water heating (approximately 2/3rds of the electricity we use is for water heating and to heat or cool a home). A book-end video on the more complete home which is passive AND includes electricity saving techniques or appliances could be really useful.

What kind of material do you recommend for wall and floor and roof thermal insolation? Besides mineral wool and plastics like XPS.

How well does this work on the Gulf Coast? We have high cooling loads but also needs lots of humidity control.

They didn’t speak of cooling. Where I live during the summer we have consecutive weeks of 90 degrees F weather. And this can slop over into the spring and fall. Our concern is cooling.

Next time you guys are in Seattle, my place is open (with parking).

Wow.... Very informative and inspiring, I'm reeling with ideas and questions. #1 In about a year or so I plan on converting a truck to live in full time (RV'ing, Tiny house on wheels...) Does it make sense to use passive house techniques on this type of build?

thanks for the explanation. I have a question regarding this video. what should I consider to build a passive house back home in Saudi Arabia and who to deal with heat gain regarding of that??

love how they talked about how the structure would retain heat.. but mentioned nothing about cooling a structure.. thats where the real test of a green construction happens.. because after all.. if a building is cold in winter one can ALWAYS bundle up.. but in summer theres only so much layers we can remove in an attempt to stay cool... not to mention its always been cheaper to heat than to cool anyways...

Got there. Good. Here In Europe they use it quite a while now but also it was found recently that even tho the idea has many great features on a long therm base it is not sustainable. The problem with passive houses that u need to follow really and I mean REALLY strict principles as a GC and builder to achive the passive function. Also you need way way more air and heat related structure and automaton to controll the air tight system of the passive structure. The amount of money spent on it just simply does not worth to calc with it. If you would in general plan a Low energy house that would cost less than a passive and would not need any extra costy pipeing. Also on passive houses the economic payback can not be determined exactly while on low energy houses they are calcable.

How is the soundproofing between units? And fire safety? Thanks! 😊

Still makes me wonder why we haven't update building codes fast enough to take advantage of this knowledge.

and how much the construction cost increases for this 5 layers super-insulated enclosure?

I want more about exceptional wather efficiency and foundation effitience for a quebec environment and other things we don't think of.

What are some some cost effective strategies for people in tropical areas( high temperatures and high humidity)?

Passiv-haus is very ACTIVE. I like true 1970's passive - more robust, low cost and simple.

This depends on the country. In Malaysia, there is a serious termite issue, ensuring most wood based insulation or any wood at all in that manner will turn into food = bad for structure.

So..Are there any special requirements when it comes to cooking equipment? I like to cook and bake, and I'm wondering if I'll end up roasting myself, especially in the summer time?

All well and good but how does it do anything to effect all the houses we already have?

Love this concept! I wonder how low of a temperature a passive house could realistically withstand and for how long? e.g.: A 10° F cold weather, for a 3 month duration.

Cool concept. I wonder if these concepts can be adapted to Miami. I don't think our building codes would permit this as is. Houses here are concrete thanks to the need to withstand hurricanes.

I need opposite of what you have here. Temperature rises up to 40-45°C in my country. Is there anything for that?

Any recommendations for a Florida hot and humid, hurricane climate using concrete?

Oh, one thing that should be emphasized when describing a passivhaus is the " Comfort " factor . This is not something that can be measured but it can be experienced and when it is experienced it oddly becomes the biggest selling factor. We ask for peoples opinions that come to our house for the first time and invariably they all comment on how comfortable it is.

Done some research on passive homes in the UK where i live. i'ts great how they function. but the prices still pretty pricey

Lime mortar houses are the best!

I'd love to build a passive house myself. Has there been any calculation to the impact of additional lumber used for those extra thick walls??? Economically and environmentally...

I find it interesting that she is constantly talking about heat loss, as climate change gets worse the energy demands of cooling are going to triple. Even worse, in places were aircon is not common (Europe) people are literally dying from the heat. This house looks well insulated but I hope that it is also cool- a lot of houses in the Europe have no awning or overhang on windows and are designed to hold all the heat- I actually find them quite stuffy. People are dying in their homes in the middle of summer. I am curious to see how these hold up in the heat (especially long stretches of heat- like a month of over 30 degrees, which is normal in most places). Of course, insulation is a good thing but we need to start thinking about heat protection along with preservation.

love it

Is passive compatible with CLT?

This is a good video, but it would be a step further to talk about positive energy houses (which produce more than they consume through sustainable energy, allowing energy surplus to be used for transports or anything else)

a revolution!

Can these same techniques be used in hot countries? Or is it optimised for cold climates? During hot summers we don't want to keep the heat in.

What would the opposite of a passive solar house be? I live in the Caribbean and I want to know how to build my house so that it is strong (to withstand hurricanes) but cool.. the level of heat in my country almost feels unbearable at times.