This NY Times article about "passive houses" is very intriguing, especially considering all the crazy ice storms and power outages lately all over.

Growing in popularity in Germany and Scandinavia, "passive homes" are heavily insulated, tightly sealed homes which don't require active heating, even in the coldest German winters. Passive heating from the sun or the household appliances or even body heat will be enough to keep the house warm.

One trick is ventilation. But changing the air usually means loss of heat, but the use of a heat exchanger can reclaim that heat when drawing in fresh, cold air from outside.

Interesting article.

I`m hoping to one day go Geo-Thermal For now it's just wood stove, with no AC. Pretty close to a 'passive house' ... hahaha

We looked at doing a "passive home" for a customer. Using Energy Star HERS system their budget would allow for about a 4200 Sq. Ft. structure. The plan they had designed for a Passive House had to be reduced to less than 1800 Sq. Ft. to stay in the same budget, AND it was suggested they have an air conditioning system to cope with Texas heat/humidity.

It may be a relatively novel concept in the US but in Europe it has been around for a while. Those passive houses really work. If you do the maths right and know how to improvise, building a passive house is actually much cheaper than conventional construction. I know a family who built their own passive home almost entirely out of natural, locally available materials (mostly wood and mud) for very little $ and it's a pretty comfortable place to live. A friend of mine has started a similar project. We'll see how it turns out.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for it. It is just getting the cost down.

Did someone say strawbale?

We'll likely build our dream home as some type of non-traditional, a few years down the road. We've looked at straw-bale and toured the Earthships in New Mexico. Those are very cool, but for something close that still looks conventional, I've been intrigued by the double-shell Enertia homes.

www.enertia.com

My best friend's Father (a Fermi lab scientist) converted an old farm house to a passive solar home over 30 years ago. After the project not much of the farm house was left, but the end result was really impressive.

The ventilation issue was the limiting factor in some 1980's experimentation in such housing in upstate NY. Houses were built to specs that were a little too air-tight, resulting in near lethal accumulation of carbon oxides, humidity/condensation issues, and in having the the kitchen window blow out if the front door was closed too emphatically.

My ancestors in Ireland used building style that involved a two-story dwelling with the livestock-cows, goats, pigs- housed in the first story, and the folks housed in the second, taking advantage of the livestock-generated convective warmth, and providing a sort of ground floor pantry of very fresh meat products. This could be adapted to urban-friendly livestock-guinea pigs,rabbits, pigeons, cats and dogs- with a suitable change in recipes. This arrangement encourages copious ventilation-the folks upstairs really WANT to have a window or two open, even in the worst weather, but occasionally the stench and squalor became unbearable...to the pigs.

Had the opportunity to stay in a strawbale house a couple of years ago. This was down near San Diego, CA over the 4th of July holiday.

It was very impressive. Outside temps over 100 degrees F, indoors, highs in the 70's. So long as we stayed indoors, it was great.

The insulation was very good, the bales were covered with an adobe like substance.

I could easily see using this sort of construction process on a house located in the Southwest U.S. and if things work out in the future, will probably do so when I move to New Mexico as I hope to.

The problems I see with things like alternative building processes, energy sources, etc. are that people seem to think that a "one size fits all" method will work when it clearly won't. A house that will keep you cool in the Southwest U.S. might not and probably won't work to keep you warm in a Northwest winter but there are always alternatives that will work, usually better than the standard wood frame, drywall interior houses that have become so prevalent. Same thing with solar power, will it work for everyone, everywhere? No, but when it's used properly, in conjunction with other sources, it lowers our dependence on things like coal fired electric generating plants. Same thing with my cars that run on veggie oil, they're not a panacea or a total solution to using gasoline, they're a tool, a small part of the process.

JohnE