
Multifamily Passive House in Vancouver - f_allwein
https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/multifamily-passive-house-completed-vancouver.html
======
def-
Last summer I lived in the largest passive house settlement in the world, in
Heidelberg, Germany, and the main complaint is the heat in the summer. Even
with cooling down the apartment to 20°C with open windows all night, and
closed windows and window blinds all day, the apartment would be back at 28°C
when returning after work. Basically it is too hot in the apartment from May
to September. In a survey nearly 60% of the people living there complained
that it is too hot in summers, so it doesn't seem to be an isolated problem to
the specific building I lived in.

~~~
stinos
_cooling down the apartment to 20°C with open windows all night_

This sounds like mainly the air cooled down while a lot of heat was still
trapped in the building itself. There are ways to make this better though. So
you could say that particular building is not overly well designed. 28°C is
just too much. Though no matter what you try, unless you're under ground, if
you have 10 or more consecutive days with temperatures rising well over 30°C,
you won't really be able to stop that. Anyway it's been a while I looked into
this but some things I recall: a lot of mass on the roof, like a garden, will
keep much of the heat out there. More mass in general as well IIRC becasue it
just takes longer to heat (but again, once all heat is in and it's too much,
you're going to have to wait before it is all gone again). Avoiding direct
sunlight on the walls also helps. Reflecting glass, outer blinds (blinds
inside doesn't do all that much, that's basically too late because sunlight
has entered the interior already).

~~~
saeranv
One more cool idea: setting translucent Phase Change Materials (PCM) directly
against your windows. PCMs are wax-like material that have a high latent heat
of fusion (energy it takes to change the phase of material i.e solid ->
liquid). Because latent heat change occurs at a constant temperature, the PCM
acts as a thermal storage when solar energy or ambient temperature increases,
and then releases the heat during the evenings.

At my (architecture/research) office, my colleague coded a 3D FEM to model the
way this interacts with different geometries so we could investigate how to
regulate the thermal storage capacity of a PCM surface. I'm fascinated by
PCMs, although he seems to think that the resulting temperature dampening is
too little[1] to have broad application in architecture...

[1] Liquid -> gas phase change has a higher latent heat of fusion and might be
a way to solve this I think. It would require larger volumes, or a way to
safely contain higher pressure, but similar to fridge or AC systems, this
should provide a couple of orders of magnitude greater heat storage.

------
swampthinker
My previous startup was an API that would give homes an energy efficiency
letter grade along with a bill estimate to embedded in real estate websites.
While it failed for a host of issues, one that stood out in my head was how
little people valued efficiency over renewables.

Generally speaking, money invested in improving building efficiency will have
a better carbon and financial payback than any form of solar, wind, or hydro.
And yet, homeowners will get solar panels before they insulate their walls.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Was this an American centric startup? I know in especially Germany and
probably much of Europe building efficiency is a big deal, to the extent that
things like smaller windows are prioritized.

~~~
ipsi
Yeah - similar information sometimes (I had to check several listings before I
found one with this info) exists when looking for flats in Germany. See, e.g.,
[https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/96661853?referrer=RE...](https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/96661853?referrer=RESULT_LIST_LISTING&navigationServiceUrl=%2FSuche%2Fcontroller%2FexposeNavigation%2Fnavigate.go%3FsearchUrl%3D%2FSuche%2FS-T%2FWohnung-
Miete%2FUmkreissuche%2FM_fcnchen_2dMaxvorstadt%2F80335%2F114221%2F2028686%2FSeidlstra_dfe%2F-%2F20%2F3%2C00-%26exposeId%3D96661853&navigationHasPrev=true&navigationHasNext=true&navigationBarType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=4c1f5bf4-5e75-33dd-9c57-cb1c147d1606#/)

Under "Bausubstanz & Energieausweis" it lists the energy required to heat the
apartment in kWh/m^2.

(I don't live in Germany, but have been considering moving).

------
maxsilver
From the article's description, apparently "Passive House" means "no cooling
whatsoever", which explains why it's not common in the US.

Don't get me wrong, we need stronger building standards and better insulation.
Especially in the US, where we let literally any hollow twig+glue structure
stand with essentially no quality checks whatsoever.

But the reason everyone "throws a solar panel on top to get Net Zero", is
because it gives you cheap green electricity to run both heat _and Air
Conditioning_. There are precious few places you could build this thing in the
US where it won't be annoyingly hot to live in for at least 3+ months every
year. Even in Michigan, a building is essentially broken if it doesn't have
AC, if not for the heat then to at least remove the moisture / humidity /
condensation built up.

~~~
willyt
You don't need AC to remove humidity. MVHR removes it and dumps it into the
drains when the warm outgoing air goes through the air to air heat exchanger
to warm up the incoming air.

~~~
maxsilver
Then where does the heat from your dehumidifier go?

MVHR seems to assume outside air is always cooler and fresher than inside air,
and uses that for free cooling. Which is great for like 70% of the time. But
what about the ~30% of time when it isn't there.

~~~
dangravell
It doesn't assume that. MVHR has a bypass to disable the heat exchanger if
that's important.

You don't have a dehumidifier. One of the biggest benefits of fabric first is
the reduction in complexity.

~~~
falcolas
If you don't have a dehumidifier, all of those big bags of mostly water that
inhabit the building will expel some of that water with every breath, and
going to increase the humidity fairly noticeably.

I'm also going to guess that the MVHR is also not 100% efficient. It's either
going to create heat to completely cool down the incoming air (hey, look, an
AC, complete with dehumidification), or the incoming air is going to average
out with the out going air, creating an increase in temperature.

Plus, all of those bags of mostly water are going to be expelling heat, too.

~~~
dangravell
MVHR is a ventilation system - it removes the humidity.

A decent MVHR runs at double figures in terms of watts, so like an old
fashioned light bulb.

------
Xeoncross
WARNING: Decreased Oxygen is a problem with well-sealed houses. I live in one.

You must have fresh air to avoid CO2 poisoning. If the outside air is a
problem, then you either 1) give up on being passive and use conditioning of
some form or you 2) begin the suffocation process (starts with poor
concentration then moves to headaches).

This is one reason for NetZero as an alternative form of building. Even using
a solar array with an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) or ERV (Energy Recovery
Ventilation) helps a lot if you don't want to run a full compressor-based
system.

~~~
brandon272
Is your house more sealed than a typical new home? I live in a new home with
an HRV system (all new homes here have them), but I always assumed they were
required for issues related to condensation and humidity, not oxygen levels.

~~~
Xeoncross
My house is much more sealed than a typical new home. Every crack was sprayed
with foam and every sheet of OSB/decking was taped, then the house was wrapped
in ridge foam panels and taped again. Then it was wrapped in house wrap. The
weep holes on the windows, and front door, and the venting for the stove and
bathroom are the only source of outside air. There is no attic.
[http://tinyhousemansion.com/](http://tinyhousemansion.com/)

Most homes leak plenty so HRV's are mostly about recovering costs and helping
with condensation and humidity since they are designed for cold weather.

~~~
brandon272
Oh! I watched your tiny home tour a while ago! Yes, I can see why your
definition of a well sealed home is likely a lot different than what would be
considered "well-sealed" for a typical new home, as well as why concerns about
oxygen and CO2 are a factor.

I mentioned that HRV's are essentially standard where I live, which is in
Canada, so I think our largest concern here has to do with condensation which
can quickly become an issue in any non-drafty indoor space in our extremely
cold winters. If the HRV is not set high enough in the winter, ice will build
up on the inside of our windows and then melt into the wall structure, causing
potential issues.

------
baybal2
>The building is a simple super insulated “dumb building”. No technology or
complicated mechanical systems, just a simple envelope, high quality windows
and high quality air control through Heat Recovery Ventilation. Walk in and
set your heat……that’s it! The money is spent on its simple well-built design,
not technology.

That is rather sophisticated by North American standards for multi-family
housing.

I was stunned when I first saw multi-family houses being built in American as
a simple wooden, skeletal structure.

My choice for something like that would've been steel frame with thermal stops
for non-load bearing walls, non-removable formwork out of something like MGO
board, and foam concrete pour. Not much separate insulation required for this
design.

~~~
lostmsu
I wish there would be some steel/concrete/brick single family options. Nearly
nothing in Seattle area built after 1930.

~~~
auxym
I know of at least this Canadian company that specializes in single-family
steel-framed design and construction, but it definitely is more on the high-
end side of things.

[https://bonestructure.ca/en/technology/](https://bonestructure.ca/en/technology/)

~~~
tonyarkles
I saw one of their projects going up in Saskatoon. It looked to be an in-fill
two-suite house. It went together amazingly fast, and from what I could tell
it was very well built. The Bone "system" they've put together is pretty cool
too; all of the major pieces come on a truck pre-cut and then assembled on-
site. It reminded me of Meccano.

------
Tharkun
Tangentially related anecdote: I remain convinced that it's the occupant, not
the building that matters. I heat my uninsulated 1910 era flat for about
~150EUR/year. Of that 150 about 100 goes to hot water (showers, mostly). How?
By wearing clothes in winter. Sometimes a blanket if it gets particularly
cold. In winter my indoor air temperature is around 14°C, which is plenty when
you're wearing clothes.

Buying extra insulation, or a "smart thermostat" or any other "energy saving"
thingamajig would cost a lot more than the payoff would ever be.

~~~
ipsi
I can only assume you live somewhere pretty warm - if I don't have the heaters
on in my apartment, the indoor air temperature will be roughly equal to the
outdoor air temperature, which is frequently <5°C in winter. No amount of
clothing is going to make that comfortable or healthy to live in.

I don't know how much it costs to heat my place, since I only have storage
heaters, so it all gets merged in with the rest of my electricity usage.

~~~
pjc50
> the indoor air temperature will be roughly equal to the outdoor air
> temperature

Your insulation could definitely be improved - I live in Scotland and when
it's 0C inside it seems to equalise at about 10C simply from having humans in
with cooking and lighting. That's still a bit uncomfortably cold so I run the
heating, but without good insulation a lot of paid for heat would be escaping.

~~~
ipsi
Oh, no doubt. It's an old terraced house in London, and I'm in the basement
flat. No double-glazing, and I doubt the walls are properly insulated. But
it's relatively cheap, and running the storage heaters 24/7 hasn't resulted in
an excruciating power bill.

The only time I've actually noticed it being brutally cold was coming home
after several weeks abroad, where I'd turned the heaters off before I left to
save power. Coming home after that was particularly unpleasant.

------
f_allwein
I think this is pretty much the way to go in terms of future housing -
obviously, adapting to local climate and needs. I’m surprised that so many
passive/ ecological houses are designed for single families, which must be a
poor use of resources and land (in most places).

------
pfarnsworth
I wish I could increase the insulation capabilities of my house. My house is
literally stucco on the outside, a paper vapor barrier, and then it's the
studs and drywall of my walls. I have no sheathing in between my studs and
drywall, so I have massive air flow. I would literally have to rip down all my
walls and add a layer of sheathing in order to stop air flow and add
insulation, and would cost ~$50,000. Better to just turn on my furnace during
the winter months and spend $300/month for 4 months a year.

~~~
evjim
You can add dense pack cellulose insulation pretty easily to an uninsulated
house. Home depot rents the machines to do it. Use a hole saw at the top of
the drywall, shove in the blower tube and fill the cavity up with low cost
cellulose.

------
vanderZwan
Even though better energy efficiency is great, the video highlights how policy
for efficient housing requires minimising draft, which implies convection
heating. This means that (at least on this topic) policy is still not
addressing the really fundamental problems. To give an analogy: we did not get
the modern computer by building a better vacuum tube, we did it by switching
to an entirely different technology.

Kris de Decker has written extensively on this topic: why convection heating
is problematic, which alternatives exist, and the problems with focusing
exclusively on energy efficiency[0][1][2][3]. In short:

\- On a meta-level, the actual problem we are trying to solve is not one of
heating. Heating is a _solution_. The problem we are solving is _how to stay
warm_. Framing it this way opens up entirely new options to explore.

\- Air is a natural insulator with low thermal capacity, so an incredibly
inefficient transport medium of heat. When heating up a cold room, the ambient
air may heat up quickly, but the objects in a room can stay cold for very
long.

\- Convection heating requires that the heated air does not escape the room,
so we end up with a trade-off between heating and fresh air. Personal anecdote
related to this: I live in house that is so well-insulated that I cannot sleep
with the window closed, feeling exhausted and out of breath in the morning
(likely more due to the rise of CO2 than a lack of oxygen, but the result is
the same). These days I sleep with the window open, under three layers of
blankets, and the heating to a bare minimum.

\- Convection heating also heats up the entire space, which is really
wasteful: we really only care about heating the humans and other living things
inside this space. To point out how ridiculous this really is: hot air
_naturally rises to the ceiling first_ , where nobody needs it. (admittedly,
when a space remains damp and cold for a very long period of time, there is
the problem of mould to consider. There are solutions for that, and they are
more sustainable than wasting heat with convection heating)

\- Because the heat in the air is absorbed at the windows, we have to put the
convection heater next to it to get an even heat gradient in the room. So in
other words: we put our heat source _right next to the biggest heat-sink in
the room_.

Other methods of staying warm, like radiant heating or electrically heated
clothing (yes, this exists) can bypass most if not all of these issues.

The problem is that we are trying to make modern lifestyle more efficient
without radically questioning the lifestyle itself.

Elizabeth Shove had a good paper on this problem, although it can get quite
dense[4]. Kris de Decker has a more accessible summary of it[3]. I'll
highlight some stuff from Shove's paper:

> _Programmes of energy efficiency are politically uncontroversial precisely
> because they take current interpretations of ‘service’ for granted. But in
> normalizing specific definitions of service, methods of evaluating
> efficiency carry normative assumptions about ‘need’ forward, invisibly
> bedding them into future programmes of research and development._

> _In conclusion, the un-reflexive pursuit of energy efficiency is problematic
> not because it does not work, or because the benefits are absorbed
> elsewhere, as the rebound argument suggests, but because it does work– via
> the necessary concept of equivalence of service – to sustain, perhaps
> escalate but never undermine [...] increasingly energy-intensive ways of
> life._

> _In response, it is tempting to call for greater interdisciplinarity, and
> new ideas are definitely needed. However, as Daniels and Rose perceptively
> observed, it is no accident that the field of energy efficiency is ‘devoid
> of any vision of history’ (Daniels & Rose, 1982) This is not something that
> can be fixed since it is an unavoidable consequence of how programmes of
> efficiency are conceptualized. In the end, it is impossible to imagine how
> organizations like the IEA, the EU or the UK Committee on Climate Change
> might come to recognize and explicitly evaluate their own role in making and
> shaping present and future ‘needs’. At the same time, and as historians
> might well point out, the ambition of reproducing ‘present’ standards of
> living, now and in the years ahead, is doomed to fail._

Better energy efficiency is important, but only one path. And on it's own, it
will be as effective as insisting on building smaller vacuum tubes.

[0] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/radiant-and-
conductiv...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/radiant-and-conductive-
heating-systems.html)

[1] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-
heating.html](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html)

[2] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/11/heat-your-clothes-
not...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/11/heat-your-clothes-not-your-
house.html)

[3]
[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.13...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.1361746)

[4] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-
energy-e...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-
efficiency.html)

~~~
dangravell
>Even though better energy efficiency is great, the video highlights how
policy for efficient housing requires minimising draft, which implies
convection heating.

What on earth makes you think that? It's incorrect.

~~~
vanderZwan
That literal sentence? But if you watched the first video, at the 3:25 mark it
is mentioned that there is barely any air exchange with the environment (I'm
gasping for air at the thought of it), and at 5:45 you see a heater in front
of a window, which implies using air as the medium of heat transport[0][1].
Hence, convection heating.

Look, I don't know the Passive Housing standard, I'm inferring based on the
information given in the video and article. If I'm wrong, don't just say "this
is incorrect", tell me what the standard actually is.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXV_RqAUbho&t=3m25s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXV_RqAUbho&t=3m25s)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXV_RqAUbho&t=5m44s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXV_RqAUbho&t=5m44s)

------
the_mitsuhiko
Passive houses got really popular over here (Austria/Germany area). It’s
interesting to see it popping up in other parts of the world now too.

~~~
baybal2
Vancouver is a good place where a case for passive house makes sense: annual
temperature and moisture swings are not big.

In other cities, not so much. You have to resort to fossil fuel heating
anywhere where temperature get below -20 for extended time.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Passive does not meanno heating. Just way less. Also works with temperature
swings as evidented by the amounts of passive houses in the alps.

~~~
baybal2
A good place for passive house is one where a house can cool down enough
during the night and accumulate enough of heat during the day.

If the temperature simply goes to -20 and stays there 24/7 for the rest of the
seasons. You have to design a house differently.

I'm not sure about Alps region. Are conditions there like that?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Lausanne was like that, not exactly the apps but on the southern nearby end. I
venture that most of Europe has mild enough winters and summers outside of the
extremes northern and southern parts.

