Tuesday
Jan182011
Canada's FIRST Passive House!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 1:15PM By Ross Elliott
Homesol certified the first Passive House in Canada on November 22nd, 2010, for Chris Straka / Vert Design in Ottawa, proving that a 90% reduction in energy consumption (less than 15 kwhrs / m2 / year and airtightness under 0.6 ACH50) is possible even in our climate (in fact, a Passive House has been built in Fairbanks, Alaska, which is twice as cold as Ottawa - take that, all you naysayers!).
Stay tuned for more details on this project!
(Ross Elliott, CPHP, LEED-AP, RASDT, RHSD, is CEO and President of Homesol Building Solutions Inc., located in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.)
Reader Comments (4)
Congratulations Homesol! Outstanding accomplishment. Keep up the great work!
Thanks Derek!
The congratulations should really go to Chris Straka, who achieved Passive House without even really aiming for that outcome, he simply built his own house the way he knows a good house should be built. No fancy technology, just basic first principles like maximizing R-values, minimizing thermal bridging and making the envelope as airtight as possible. The high efficiency HVAC systems are just icing on the cake. Chris originally was thinking of Passive House certification when he was in the design stages, but gave up that goal because everyone said it would be expensive, difficult and needed high priced outside consultants to achieve, so he just built himself what he knew would be the most cost-effective and comfortable house he knew how to design and build. I was just lucky enough to be involved with Chris' house as the LEED Green Rater when we discovered the house exceeded the air tightness requirement of Passive House, which prompted us to revisit the PH energy model calculations. We both look forward to many more Passive Houses in future!
This is very encouraging news - we want to build a passive house in Ontario and knowing that it does not need to be overly expensive and difficult is good to hear. Of course he knew how to build the house properly and was an experienced green builder. I think we may need to hire a consultant / architect to model our home with PHPP .. which will probably not be cheap... Great to hear though and I hope it gets the ball rolling in Canada to get into gear with Passive Homes!
Hi Kyle,
Modeling your house with PHPP isn't really expensive (depending on your definition of expensive), it could be as little as $1000 for a simple design. But one thing leads to another, and tweaking the design, providing advice on high performance building assemblies, etc. could easily triple that number. I also believe the path to success with PH goes beyond just designing and modeling, to include ongoing support and competent site supervision while putting it all together, another service Homesol offers, and then there's the cost of wrapping everything up in the end, "as-built" modeling, air leakage testing and applying for certification. So consulting fees on a Passive House really depend on the client and the project, if your budget is tight and your knowledge base is broad it may not be as expensive as you think.