What’s it like in a Passive House? - 5 owners tell their story

What's it really like in passive house?

Today, you are going to find out.

In this first episode, I let passive house speak for itself through the experience of 5 passive house owners from different climate zones around Australia. Most of them are home owners, but my final guest is from a commercial building, because passive house delivers incredible benefits for all building types, not just houses!

In today's episode, my 5 guests explain:

• What made them decide to build a passive house,
• Their concerns before they started,
• What they now love most about their passive house, and
• How it has affected their lifestyle.

The interviews bring to light surprising information and sweep away all misconceptions and scepticism.

One thing to note:

You’ll hear in the interviews that some guests live in Passive Houses, and some live in Passive House style high performance homes. The high performance homes incorporate all the components, testing and outcomes of a Passive House, but have not sought formal certification.

You’ll find out more about the pros and cons of formal certification in Episode 4 with the Passive House consultant and Certifier Luc Plowman from Detail Green

If you’re an Australian Architect you can claim your formal CPD hours for these podcasts.

MORE INFORMATION

Find everything you need on the Renovation Collaborative website.

www.renovationcollaborative.com.au

• PODCAST Key points summary, timestamps and resource links
• FREE RESOURCES Transcript edited into clear Q&A.
• CPD Australian architects can find more information on CPD, and
• COURSES Eleven easy to read courses demystifying the entire home design and construction process.

KEY POINTS SUMMARY

1. Passive House delivers genuine health and comfort benefits. The temperature is always stable and pleasant. It's quiet and calm inside the house. There's no mould and the filtered air keeps dust, dirt and pollen and all other pollutants out of the house.

2. It's low maintenance. Because the windows can stay shut, the dirt and dust build up slower and there are no insects and spiders, so there's a lot less cleaning. The bathrooms can stay dry and fresh and your towels are dry within a few hours.

3. You can still connect with the outside like any typical home. You can open the windows whenever the weather is comfortable outside, or just to hear the birds sing, feel a breeze or talk to the neighbours.

4. Passive Houses require a specialised system to duct filtered outdoor air throughout the house. This is called a HRV or an ERV depending on your climate zone. It's silent and you can't feel it. The air is just trickling out at the ceiling level. You also need some air conditioning to fine tune the temperature to a small degree or for a minimum amount of time. You're not running an air conditioning unit on full for hours at a time.

5. There are substantial energy use and running cost savings. The HRV or ERV energy use is negligible at about 80 watts, so if you had to compare that to something, it's...