Wolfworks

I think some of your initial responses are pretty typical Kevin. It can take some time to acclimate your understanding and ideas about what we think good building is to what PH teaches. It did for me.

This stuff can seem pretty obsessive - aren't we building pretty tight well insulated houses and using efficient equipment if we're any kind of careful designer or builder. Isn't being a green builder just being a good builder after all - and aren't we pretty good? The epiphany for me is that the answer turns out to be "not actually". Damn!

As you suggest, unless you've actually gone to the trouble to really understand how a true low energy building performs (no PV's - they're for dessert) and have tools like PHPP that allow you to use that knowledge as you design and build, there's a good chance you're only getting to "good enough".

As Marc Rosenbaum likes to explain: Do your best work, pressurize the building, turn on the fog machine, stand outside and watch the leaks reveal themselves, then ask if that's "good enough"? That's the conversion experience!

Your summary is pretty reasonable for a first exposure. Just remember there is no prescriptive "typical R value", nor are the items you describe requirements - you meant that to meet the requirements these strategies and materials are often necessary - and each is driven by climate and building form, thus the need for a tool like PHPP.

Those of us who have chosen to become certified consultants are eager to help do this side of the heavy lifting (I'll stay on the ground while you're carrying that plywood to the roof). And I'll be the first to agree that designing carefully enough to achieve PH certification requires effort (I don't see it as complication - though I get your drift and understand the reaction). I've come to think of it as "energy engineering" and not that different than structural engineering - something you don't want to skip over. Run the numbers and get it right.

You're right. It was cheap energy (fossil fuels) that allowed us to be relatively indifferent to these "complications". That party is over. Every home we build needs to have a new member of the team that thinks it through and gets it done; someone capable of integrating the thinking that PHPP models. On the next project you're planning, including a PH consultant is a damn good place to start.

Jamie Wolf
Wolfworks Inc.
Designers & Builders
Certified Passive House Consultant
Avon, CT