kevin @ think | design | consult

If your builder only talks about Code compliance, they’re meeting the legal minimum. #SmallSmartSpaces uses Passive House and Homestar tools to prove performance. Want comfort and value, not just compliance? Download the guide—link in bio. #HealthyHomes #SmartDesign

Just reading up on carbon cycles, with Paul Hawkins’ new book, Carbon: The Book of Life.
Understanding the carbon cycle and its fundamental role in life - which then forms the carbon cycle - there’s great insights: why it’s so essential to understand impacts of our buildings > our lives > future.

That's why we need to create safe arks for people + avoid upfront emissions. The quality monitored #passivehouse concept gives important hints: airtight and super insulated envelopes + filtered air.
To avoid unnecessary emissions this means retrofitting buildings preferably with plants + earth.

French Quarter townhouses are often Missing Middle Housing powerhouses with more residents than it seems to hold with the front upper unit opening with a balcony to the street and the others opening to the inner courtyard.

you know NIMBYs in raleigh are whining about missing middle developing 'decimating tree canopy' too

At first glance, a French Quarter townhouse might appear to be single-family, but look down the passage and count the mailboxes for all the residents with front doors on the rear courtyard; a great Missing Middle Housing type with more residents than it might seem.

every. time.

i really cannot get over how compact this is.

the stair and elevator is less than 200 s.f. (net)

they've tucked living space behind it.

each unit has daylight on 3 sides. each unit has private outdoor space. you get family sized homes. no windowless bedrooms...

This mixed-use building has a restaurant paired with several apartment above and to the right, so it’s no surprise that the restaurant has been a quiet establishment for as long as I’ve been aware of it.

Such a practical layout for the apartments - and with balcony access from all three bedrooms AND the living/dining/kitchen space… 🤯 !!

Brofästet Apartment Building / DinellJohansson Completed in 2021 in Stockholm, Sweden. Images by Mikael Olsson, Stockholmshem. The project is a result of a land allocation competition held by the city of Stockholm. The city asked for a plus-energy...

compact single stair 7-story building where the typical floor is (4) 3-bedroom homes around a central circulation core.

every home is corner aspect (daylight on 2 sides)
every home has private outdoor space that doubles as a wintergarden
home office space

schoen!

www.archdaily.com/1031518/brof...

And I’m saying that the amount of time actually below -30C, where cold climate heat pumps work to, is very small in comparison to the balance of the heating season. To pay for a gas hookup to cover a relatively small period of time: is it worth it?

3/.. turn on ANY heat at all, supplied from ANY source once it was -30C AND cloudy for more than 3 days. It’s what a well designed Passive House can supply.
Retrofits & new construction.
2 There’s different power demand and use cases for every climate; far more so between Canada, Australia /Fin

2/.. the longest period please. The use of batteries in combination with Passive House - driving the heating load down to the point where the average size house can be heated with one decent sized hair dryer - can solve the back up heating issue. One client in Calgary reported only having to ../3

There’s a couple of threads to pull on this thread:
1 Talking about backup heat for heat pumps: there’s actually a small period in most places where the majority of people live in North America’s heating climates that requires backup heating for cold climate heat pumps. The most efficient for ../2

Grids world wide are cleaning up, so there’s that.
Plus: it’s not as simple as heat > electricity > heat, when the last step is a heat pump with a COP of 3.5…

yes

Indeed.

Thanks for the perspective!
I wouldn’t hesitate in commenting directly to the PHI (Passive House Institute) - tho I’m fairly certain you’ve been heard. It’s not that huge an organization; considerably more nimble than Canadian building code processes…!

i gave a talk at AIA seattle's transformative housing symposium on what social housing in seattle could look like...

it was an opp to talk about how bad TOD in the US is, and how seattle's building and zoning codes - while better than most of the US - are pretty bad for producing high quality homes

See above: short answer: yes.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see further improvements in further versions. That’s the good thing about continuous improvement, an open community, and open source software…

2/.. and input from others led directly to the introduction of the Summer Temp adjustment tool in v10 (to answer the further question below…)

Yes. Good on you for running that and bringing it up. Full disclosure: I also teach for PH Canada, and it’s really great to hear from participants in classes: we are all richer with new data that calls out weakness in how we are working.
PHPP 10 came out in 2020, and I’m certain that your info../2

Right? Conditions are changing fast.
Folks resistant to change in the face of change (“Ya can’t tell me how to build! I’ve always done this!”)… 😬

PHPP is useful as an iterative tool in design. I’ve found the more I change parameters for different scenarios, the more robust the design is at final.

(Good grief, will he ever stop?)
And, this:

bsky.app/profile/holz...

just one of many benefits of passivhaus:

cooling loads are ridiculously small

especially when incorporating external solar protection

doesn't take much energy to add enough cooling to take edge off

OK, not quite fin.
There’s nothing about Passive House that precludes the use of other tools to stress test specific cases: vulnerable spaces, hot facades, etc. Esp with Part 3 (large, complex buildings); it’s usually required. PHPP is then the validation tool. Bring on the other tools: goal is same

2/.. heating degree days under the code; they are colder than the av coldest temps used in PHPP. Design heating systems for that, so PHPP plus backup for the very coldest days.

Pushing summer heat is a good start. Choose whatever model you like, check out the various scenarios for a warming climate, enter that number.
For winter, in Canada we are getting shorter winters but often colder cold snaps.
Winter temps are average colder temperatures. Paying attention to the ../2

4/.. Having said that, let’s remember too:
We are all learning.
None of us have been here before.
None of us knows what’s going to happen.
But I’ll throw my hat in the ring of a standard based on solid building physics, all day long, year around.
/fin.

3/.. Passive House, like any building standard that’s realistic, is adjusting practices.
Chasing after a perceived point system to curry favour w/ city officials - it’s perhaps easy for practitioners to fall into a trap. But it’s not acceptable.
Health. Comfort. Efficiency. Resiliency. Durability./4