Data Committee

[Bronwyn Barry]

After chewing this over, I wonder if spending a whole year comparing standards may not be the best use of our community's collective 'geek power?'  Adam - may I suggest you use your awesome number-crunching abilities and willing committee members to collect performance data on actual built projects?  

What we need more than ever (PHI and PHIUS+ advocates) is real performance data over a very large sample set - a CEPHEUS project for North American buildings.  If you’d like to include alternate modeling options for all these, fine.  I have two projects here in California with measured data that I’d be happy to contribute. (I’m inclined to think Graham Irwin’s Seattle proposal to measure Thermal Time Constant would be a much more revealing measurement of these super low-load buildings.)

As much as our geeky selves love to obsess over numbers, the general public honestly doesn't give two whatsit's which standard requires a lower heat load in Boise. (God bless you Ryan, for attempting it - honestly.)  Having a committee spend a whole year of our awesome 'geek power' comparing two predictive energy models, without real numbers on actual performance or cost, strikes me as yet another diversion from the real work that needs to get done.  (I get that that may feel like 'religious ideology' to some of you but note how well those dandelions and flowers are working for LBC.)

I'll commit to help find funding for your efforts, should you decide to do this.  (Anything solidly PH/PHIUS+ qualifies with certified projects identified and perhaps given more data funding help?) Until we have a solid database on real performance numbers, all of us will continue to be marginalized in building science communities.  Let me know what your committee decides?  

[Rob Harrison AIA]

I like this idea a lot. Finding funding for installing monitoring sensors in buildings under construction now, or installing the same in completed buildings, would be fantastic, and would broaden the scope beyond ultra-geek owners willing to pay for the instruments.

I think at this point it'd be worth also including projects that went for PH but didn't make it, noting, as Bronwyn suggests, which ones are actually certified. I'm thinking of my own Bonaparte Cabin for example, which would have been PH had Pazen windows been less expensive, or had we been able to get say the Zola or Intus windows that came on the US market two months after lower performance American windows were ordered. I'd love to be able to say definitively how that project is performing.

Rob

Rob Harrison

Certified Passivhaus Designer + Consultant

HARRISON architects

1402 3rd Avenue, Suite 515

Seattle, WA  98101-2120

(206) 956-0883

http://harrisonarchitects.com

http://twitter.com/#!/robharrisonAIA

lyrical sustainable design  ::  passive house plus

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[Bronwyn Barry]

I agree the 'near-misses' should also be included, if they have the modeled PHPP/Wufi Passiv numbers.  Our Sunnyvale retrofit missed the air-leakage for retrofits of 1ACH.  (At 1.54 ACH the measured data proves it's still working insanely well.)

Glad you like this suggestion, Rob. :)  This info will be much more useful for advocacy work.  It will also shift the conversation away from minute differences in methodology to being able to show overall these methodologies work.  

B.

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Bronwyn Barry, CPHD

Certified Passive House Consultant
Director - One Sky Homes

m: 415.819.7978

t: @passivehouseBB and @oneskyhomes

http://www.oneskyhomes.com/video/hair-dryer-home

     

www.oneskyhomes.com

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[Dylan Lamar]

I agree, and would be much more inclined to put time into such a project. We have energy bill data from a few projects which I have graphed but not really analyzed yet. Also a bit of actual monitoring data. And Orchards and Ankeny Row will start generating data soon!

On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 10:21 AM, Bronwyn Barry <bronwyn...@gmail.com> wrote:

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