Home, passive home
It’s a cliché that less is more, but engineers are making it work when they apply it to houses. Passive Houses. Today, on Engineering Works.
Passive buildings, especially passive houses, are built to use as close to no energy as possible for heating and cooling. It’s a nifty idea if you can make it work and some people are.
Careful design and construction are what make passive houses work. Careful siting in relation to the sun. Super-thick and super-efficient insulation. Tight-fitting, energy-efficient windows. Construction that essentially eliminates air moving into or out of the structure. When it’s done right, passive houses use essentially no energy to stay comfortable in winter, as much as 90 percent less than houses built to conventional code standards. Many passive houses are built with no central heating at all.
There’s one big drawback to passive houses. They’re expensive to build, mostly because of specialized construction materials and additional work during construction. Passive houses also need special household appliances, like clothes dryers that don’t vent to the outside. You’d begin getting the payback from lower energy bills right away, but it’s still a lot of money.
If passive buildings are a good idea, we’re running behind. About 25,000 certified passive buildings have been built in Europe. We’ve built about a dozen with more on the way.
Our house isn’t passive, but it’s still time to finish up here and go home. See you next time.
Engineering Works! is made possible by Texas A&M Engineering and produced by KAMU-FM in College Station. Learn more about engineering. http://engineeringworks.tamu.edu
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For more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/business/energy-environment/26smart.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design
http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PassiveHouseInfo.html
