Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Passive House - energy efficiency

[Norman Gauss (normangauss]

Elizabeth:

Do your bathroom fans suck air out of the bathroom?  If so, is there makeup
air?  This is air that is sucked into the house to make up for the air
sucked out.

Do you run the fans with the bathroom doors closed?  If so, is there enough
space under the door or through the door to allow makeup air to flow into
the bathroom?

Norm Gauss


-----Original Message-----
From: Elizabeth Magill [mailto:pastorlizm [at] gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 8:27 PM
To: Cohousing-L
Cc: Cohousing-L
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Passive House - energy efficiency


Our houses have programable fans in the bathroom that can be scheduled to
run for set times.  

-liz 508-450-0431
Sent from my iPhone
Mosaic commons Berlin ma 

On Aug 23, 2011, at 5:01 PM, "Norman Gauss" <normangauss [at] charter.net> 
wrote:

> 
> How do these tight thermal envelopes solve the problem of indoor air 
> quality?  Unless some fresh air is exchanged for stale indoor air, 
> indoor air quality is likely to become very unhealthful.
> 
> Norm Gauss
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fred H Olson [mailto:fholson [at] cohousing.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 1:04 PM
> To: Cohousing-L mailing list
> Subject: [C-L]_ Passive House - energy efficiency
> 
> 
> In her message "Lancaster update, and ..."
> On 19 Aug 2011 Fiona Frank wrote:
> 
>> Lancaster Cohousing is building 34 passivhaus houses and a common 
>> house at Forge Bank on the banks of the Lune River 3 miles outside of 
>> the small north western UK city of Lancaster
> 
> "passivhaus houses" caught my attention since in recent months I have 
> become interested in this very high standard or energy efficiency. In 
> the US the phrase "passive house" is used widely instead but this term 
> is easily confused with the term passive solar building design.  The 
> two terms are different.  To further confuse things passive house 
> designs often incorporate passive solar.
> 
> The passive house standard was mentioned briefly on cohousing-L 
> previously 
> http://lists.cohousing.org/pipermail/cohousing-l/msg30088.html
> but warrants more coverage.  IMHO any new construction should take the 
> standard into consideration.
> 
> Excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
> 
> The term passive house (Passivhaus in German) refers to the rigorous, 
> voluntary, Passivhaus standard for energy efficiency in a building, 
> reducing its ecological footprint.  It results in ultra-low energy 
> buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling.
> 
> Key to achiving the standard is super insulation and a very carefully 
> and tightly constructed thermal envelope.
> 
> This and other features result in a conventional central heating 
> system is not being necessary.  A typical statement is that a passive 
> house can be heated with the equivalent of a hair dryer.
> 
> Passive houses are up to 14% more expensive upfront than conventional 
> buildings but this is quickly recouped from energy use savings.
> 
> Retrofitting a house to meet passive house standardds is possible but 
> much more difficult than with new construction.
> 
> We had a passive house architect evaluate our house and concluded with 
> him that it is not reasonable to retrofit our house to the standard.
> 
> Fred
> 
> --
> Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
>     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
> My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org         My org:
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