Passive Houses -- Engineering Homes for Nothern Climes That Do Not Require Heating

[mkrishnan]

When I had my 2.3GHz DP Power Mac G5, it kept my room nice and toasty (especially in summer). 😎

And news headline: "Excessive computer energy consumption in 'eco-friendly' homes turns them into environmental nightmares."

😀

 

[takao]

I wonder... one thing about this design is that it takes the local needs into consideration very carefully, making it well suited to our kind of climate up here. I mean, for that matter, these houses have basements, I think, right? That itself would eliminate them from implementation in much of the South of the US. I really wonder if it would be better to take a design platform like this and re-engineer it for humid, warm climates, or if it would be smarter to start over in a place like Florida or Georgia or Greece and design a house that was suited to the climate in the first place?

how much of rain/water do you have per year in mm in georgia ? i hardly can think that having a wet + hot climate can be a problem .. after all insulation also keeps heat outside of a building

(the only problem with a passive house is that the temperature is the same across the house which means no cooler bedroom)

 

[mkrishnan]

how much of rain/water do you have per year in mm in georgia ? i hardly can think that having a wet + hot climate can be a problem .. after all insulation also keeps heat outside of a building

The problem really becomes, in the US South, that 75F with air conditioning (and the humidity thereby removed) is quite tolerable, but 68 or 70F at full humidity indoors is not. When I lived in Florida, I didn't run my air conditioner hard, but I ran it intermittently for most of the summer. And in the last year, it broke down several times (grrr) and it was quite noticeable.

The other problem people have mentioned above is that there is an increased mold/fungal problem in some of these parts of the world.

I don't know if these numbers are accurate, but according to them, the variance between our driest places (about 7 inches / year = 180mm) and our wettest places (Louisiana is much worse than Georgia... nearly 60 in/yr = about 1500mm) is a factor of more than eight. Per this, that would also be somewhere around 2.5x the rainfall in Frankfurt.

But I am not sure by any means... more my wondering was just the general idea that these homes seem well engineered for the local environment, and there is always the question of whether the same philosophy applies everywhere, or whether environmentally friendly homes should be built in harmony with the local climate. (For that matter, issues of hurricane safety, flood / monsoon safety, tornado safety, earthquake safety, etc, are all variably applicable to different locales).

 

[takao]

I don't know if these numbers are accurate, but according to them, the variance between our driest places (about 7 inches / year = 180mm) and our wettest places (Louisiana is much worse than Georgia... nearly 60 in/yr = about 1500mm) is a factor of more than eight. Per this, that would also be somewhere around 2.5x the rainfall in Frankfurt.

But I am not sure by any means... more my wondering was just the general idea that these homes seem well engineered for the local environment, and there is always the question of whether the same philosophy applies everywhere, or whether environmentally friendly homes should be built in harmony with the local climate. (For that matter, issues of hurricane safety, flood / monsoon safety, tornado safety, earthquake safety, etc, are all variably applicable to different locales).

my hometown has an average of 1200mm ( from tourism info) or 1495mm (weather service) and if walk closer to the mountains it increases first to around 1900mm after 3 km and after another few kilometers into the valley its up at 2100-2500 mm and there they still have some passive houses (and they had 270mm on a single day a few years ago ..)

ah the joy of living on the northern edge of the alps... there simply is no bad weather, only bad clothes

 

[OutThere]

1400 sqft/person is a LOT of space.
in cities, it apts are way smaller than that, at least in the US.

a typical NYC 2 bedroom apartment (for a family of 3/4) is usually less than 1000 sq ft.
2000 sqft for a family of 4 is plenty of space; something along 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living room, kitchen and studio, all of reasonable size.

I understand it's a lot of space...that's why I was saying that having this much space may have skewed my perceptions. Where I live in Connecticut, just barely inside the limits of the New York Metro Area, my house (a late 1800s queen anne style, in town) is not particularly big...a 500sqft/person house would be rather small. It gets cold here and heating is expensive, so ultimately a house that could fit the town size-wise as well as being passive or nearly passive would be interesting to see.

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

I wonder what the average space per person is for the US?

I know here in Japan, it's sub 500 square feet. If I had to guess, I would say that the average in Japan is around 300 square feet.

http://books.google.com/books?id=1i...&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result
1995
Average russian: 178
average japanese: 301
poor US: 614
average US: 694

Average US (1950): 292
Average US (1970): 483
Average US (2000): 872
Average US (2006): 900

 

[mkrishnan]

Average US (1950): 292
Average US (1970): 483
Average US (2000): 872
Average US (2006): 900

The issue here is not only what is "livable" in whatever arbitrary sense that word is taken, but also what is economically viable. People in NYC (and Chicago) live very happily in small apartments, just like people do in London, Tokyo, and most other big cities. Our small apartments might be somewhat larger than your small apartments, but our city folk live in them happily.

If you build a 1000 sq foot independent home in a rural / suburban US setting, people will think you're crazy, not because it isn't "livable" but because isn't done. In fairness, people in those areas would have to sell a lot of their furniture and redecorate to live in a space of that size. But more to the point, you're going to need a lot more evidence of doom and gloom to get any of them to do it.

And I don't think this is just the United States. Are country homes in England not larger than flats in London?