An elevator speech is needed

[Hayden Robinson]

At PHNW6, I spoke with a leader of our sustainable-building community who told me she was confused by the Passive House/PHIUS thing, and that it got in the way of her involvement. An elevator-speech summary of Passive House and PHIUS+ is needed.

 

Passive House = heating your house with a hair dryer

 

PHIUS+ = powering you house with PV

 

is distilled from a paper by PHIUS's Director and Chief Scientist:

 

The refined climate-specific passive building standard is proposed as the basis for the next generation Zero Energy Ready Home. (p.6)

The goal: a simple yet fine-grained, performance-based design methodology, that guides the designer to identify the most cost-effective path to zero at the greatest overall benefits to both building owners and society. (p. 6)

In the (Passive House) cost-effectiveness model the cost of photovoltaic (PV) was not taken into account.... (p. 8)

 

Therefore the (Passive House) standard’s cost effectiveness argument does not take the goal of achieving zero energy into account or the investment to get there. (p. 8)

 

The space conditioning criteria for passive building should reflect an economical balance between conservation and generation measures on the path to zero energy. (p.8)

 

This study will draw on aspects of all three approaches (early N. American lower energy building, Passive House & ZERH, BEopt) and synthesize them into a climate specific passive building standard that will guide the design process towards an exceptional level of energy efficiency, cost-competitiveness and thermal comfort for the next generation ZERH (D.O.E. Zero Energy Ready Home program). (p. 8)

 

The (Passive House) principle of “everybody gets the same size minimized heating source” is a misapplication of the idea of a fair share. (p.9)

 

Wright , Klingenberg, Pettit:  Climate-Specific Passive Building Standards, Building America Report - 1405, March 2015

 

-Hayden