I like the way you explain everything in a passive house. I am about to move in my passive house in a month or so. Our passive house is built with ICF and I do have an ERV system.
Great video! Love the time you spent in the mechanical room. I didn’t hear anything about air tightness? Keep up the good work Paul, I met you a couple of years ago at your house in kanata, you inspired me so much that we have built our own passive house in Maxville Ontario, we are certifying the house and just had our pre air test and it was 0.045! Please come visit if you are ever out our way! We are almost at the stage of the Zehnder Evr install.
Nice to hear, well done! Our air tightness is normally anywhere from 0.1 to 0.5 depending on the design Curious, who did you decide to use for certification? And what wall system did you use?
Peel passive house with Wilson architectural design in Martintown, Ontario. It’s an Icf house, Nudura xr35 with an added 4 inch Homega panel on the outside.
Great video as always. I would like to know more about that Jablotron Futura ERV. I heard it has a cooling module (cool breeze?) available for cooling and heating through the ventilation system. Is it enough for a passive house requirement? Also would like to know as well more about the window glass specifications for a passive house. Should we choose a more heat reflecting glass or a less heat reflecting glass? Those two topics would make two great videos 😊. Thank you and continue with your great videos👏👏
Happy to hear you enjoyed the tour! And thanks for your suggestions! Yes, the Jablotron has a cool breeze module, it works in tandem with a small Fujitsu heat pump which unfortunately is presently difficult to get in North America. That said we do have a customer who has ‘roughed-in’ a line-set for this heat pump in the hopes Jablotron will supply one for the project. The house is around the same (3000 ft.²) size house. And one cool breeze module is supposed to do the trick. We will try to do some videos on other windows specifics, however a passive certified window in general is considered a “best of all worlds” window With the following qualities -Thermal bridge free design -Thermal performance at less than 0.85W/m2K installed (glass + frame) -Solar heat gain when sun is at Low angle -Solar heat reflection when sun is at high angle -triple glazed glass with 2x low E coating for reflecting heat back to the interior Stay tuned for more!
@@EkoBuiltPassiveHomes "Solar heat gain when sun is at Low angle -Solar heat reflection when sun is at high angle". How do you achieve that at the same time?
@@joaosil Thanks for asking - to clarify…a deep roof overhang on the south is what blocks the sun. Southern glass has a solar heat gain coefficient 0.6. With this SGHC, The windows are a 3:1 Net (in:out) energy gain. East and west side of the home, windows should have a reduced SGHC which is usually 0.4
Thanks for the video, well produced. I was wondering what the approximate cost is per mini split? Are they heat pump mini splits? If so, are they air source or ground? Thanks! BTW, I love the big second floor deck.
Glad you enjoyed! They are air source heat pump, mini splits. Cost is approximately 12 K, including the exterior heat pump and one interior (mini split) head, subsequent heads cost about 2K each. A passive house only needs one single mini split per floor however, the homeowner of this house Put an additional one in all of the bedrooms. They are all controlled individually.
Absolutely correct! Ultra low energy in ALL climates zones, depends mostly on air tightness! Passive House has proven connection details can be very simple, allowing easy air tightness in any home!
350m³/h seems pretty low volume for the ventilation system compared to how large this building is, we have pratically the same unit for a small city house. From a European perspective it's weird that there is resistive heathing (both tank and floorheathing), why would you do that? Are heatpump (air-water or water-water) solutions hard to come by in the US?
ERV sizing depends on cubic volume of air in the home. A 350 actually would still be sufficient if the house was 4000 ft.² size. In the video we mentioned the homeowner wants to compare electric resistance with air source heat pump operation There are many air source heat pump options in North America, also water to water no problem That said, there’s not many options for air to water, which would be a game changer for heated floors, please let us know if you know of any of these systems where you are located
The bottom bedrooms are small. Seems like a lot of wasted space but the biggest issue is its built where it snows. You should pick better building sites :)
Amazing thanks for your comment, we have a candidate and hopefully will be doing a video of it within the next couple months, Similar to our blazing star model located on this page ekobuilt.com/ekobuilts-services/ottawa-passive-house/passive-house-plans/#smallpassive
Large roof over hangs are beautiful and protect the doors, windows and siding from rain and moisture damage. Water is the enemy of buildings. Architects and home builders need to bring back large roof over hangs
Great video! I wanted to ask about your roof system for most of your projects. They are all generally low slope with standing seam metal roofing. Do you use snow guards to protect the gutters? I'm in a high snow load area in Canada as well.
Thanks glad you enjoyed! Most of our customers do not install eavestrough except where the roof is sloping towards a door or entryway but that said, snow guards would be a good option if Eavestroughing is present If protection is required, we recommend snow fence over snow diamonds as the fence is stronger
Absolutely agree with the snow fence, and thank you for the reply! What I like about your designs is that the roof massing is kept fairly minimal, which reduces material costs and allows you to use the best products, such as standing seam metal roofing. Great work!@@EkoBuiltPassiveHomes
Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for asking! Second level radiant floor was done with hydronic tubing stapled to the subfloor and 2” concrete over pour. This method is best for a couple reasons. 1 - Concrete poured directly on subfloor creates a stronger floor 2 - Concrete distributes the heat evenly
Thanks for asking, see the link below to our cost analysis document, but this house less than $300 / ft.² including finishings ekobuilt.com/ekobuilts-services/ottawa-passive-house/passive-house-plans/frontenac-single-family-floorplan/
Where is this home located? I'm impressed with the twenty inch thick walls and European tilt-and-turn windows. The mechanical room is tidy and well laid out too. It would be interesting to know what that siding is, and what was chosen for a roofing material. My only criticism is the size: unless a family has six or eight children the house is oversized. We call it build obesity. My wife and I designed and built a super-insulated, passive solar off-grid home some fifteen years ago in central British Columbia. It was cutting edge for the day, with twelve inch thick walls (also insulated with blown-in cellulose) and triple-glazed windows (much more affordable All Weather vinyl windows, most of them fixed) with rainwater catchment for toilet flushing. It is a pleasure to live in and uses a tiny fraction of the energy our neighbours homes do. Yet few people I know are willing to pay for performance. Homebuyers are like children, attracted to flashy features like hot tubs, stainless appliances, granite counter-tops etc.; they are quite unwilling to pay up front for high-performance . Instead, they buy their 'dream homes' and start complaining bitterly about their enormous heating and cooling bills.
Great to hear your amazing comments! Especially the last one which makes me think of short term, thinking “let’s build the cheapest house possible with the nicest possible finishings” the irony is - in the modern world that house will actually cost the most and be terrible for our world because of energy use/cost Greatest thing about building a passive house now is the extremely small incremental cost to build Is more than offset with the savings and energy, etc.
The house is located just outside OTTAWA in Mississippi Mills Ontario, and regarding the size - this house was built to accommodate three families with Ukrainian refugees in mind so the reason it is naturally larger
Thanks for your question. In general southern climates R value can be reduced to R45 (instead of R75) In areas that have high humidity year-round, the vapour barrier is to be on the exterior of the home, and the open permeable membrane on the interior
@@paulmaxwell8851 it’s not weird having windows in your bedroom, it’s just different? No it’s weird. It’s not like we are talking about punk rock compared to rock. Give me a reason to have a window in your room? There’s no reason.
He said it would be opaque glass. So privacy probably isn’t a problem. It must be part of providing natural daylight. We usually keep our bedroom blinds closed all day so it wouldn’t help much for my house.
@@ELIRAXPRT Still dumb. You need natural light in the common areas from a bedroom? Especially when theres floor to ceiling windows lol you are just rationalising something that doesn't make sense. 2 steps forward, one step back.
I like the way you explain everything in a passive house. I am about to move in my passive house in a month or so. Our passive house is built with ICF and I do have an ERV system.
Well done! Congratulations!
Curious, what area are you located?
@@EkoBuiltPassiveHomes I am located in the country near Vankleek Hil (eastern Ontario)
@@yvonnelambert5003 thanks good to know not too far from Ottawa!
Good luck with your project and any questions anytime just let us know
Very well done, really enjoy the house tours once they are nearly complete. Also enjoy the focus on the major systems of the house.
Yeah, yeah passive this, passive that. Let's have a cheer for that on point board and batten symmetry.
Glad to hear you enjoyed!
Please tour the Sumac model!
Great video! Love the time you spent in the mechanical room. I didn’t hear anything about air tightness? Keep up the good work Paul, I met you a couple of years ago at your house in kanata, you inspired me so much that we have built our own passive house in Maxville Ontario, we are certifying the house and just had our pre air test and it was 0.045! Please come visit if you are ever out our way! We are almost at the stage of the Zehnder Evr install.
Nice to hear, well done!
Our air tightness is normally anywhere from 0.1 to 0.5 depending on the design
Curious, who did you decide to use for certification? And what wall system did you use?
Peel passive house with Wilson architectural design in Martintown, Ontario. It’s an Icf house, Nudura xr35 with an added 4 inch Homega panel on the outside.
That's a really interesting detail! @@cathydavidsongrant796
Great video as always. I would like to know more about that Jablotron Futura ERV. I heard it has a cooling module (cool breeze?) available for cooling and heating through the ventilation system. Is it enough for a passive house requirement? Also would like to know as well more about the window glass specifications for a passive house. Should we choose a more heat reflecting glass or a less heat reflecting glass? Those two topics would make two great videos 😊. Thank you and continue with your great videos👏👏
Happy to hear you enjoyed the tour!
And thanks for your suggestions!
Yes, the Jablotron has a cool breeze module, it works in tandem with a small Fujitsu heat pump which unfortunately is presently difficult to get in North America. That said we do have a customer who has ‘roughed-in’ a line-set for this heat pump in the hopes Jablotron will supply one for the project. The house is around the same (3000 ft.²) size house. And one cool breeze module is supposed to do the trick.
We will try to do some videos on other windows specifics, however a passive certified window in general is considered a “best of all worlds” window With the following qualities
-Thermal bridge free design
-Thermal performance at less than 0.85W/m2K installed (glass + frame)
-Solar heat gain when sun is at Low angle
-Solar heat reflection when sun is at high angle
-triple glazed glass with 2x low E coating for reflecting heat back to the interior
Stay tuned for more!
@@EkoBuiltPassiveHomes "Solar heat gain when sun is at Low angle
-Solar heat reflection when sun is at high angle". How do you achieve that at the same time?
@@joaosil Thanks for asking - to clarify…a deep roof overhang on the south is what blocks the sun.
Southern glass has a solar heat gain coefficient 0.6. With this SGHC, The windows are a 3:1 Net (in:out) energy gain.
East and west side of the home, windows should have a reduced SGHC which is usually 0.4
@@EkoBuiltPassiveHomes Got it, Thank you!
@@joaosil you’re welcome! Stay tuned for more.. ✌️
Thanks for the video, well produced. I was wondering what the approximate cost is per mini split? Are they heat pump mini splits? If so, are they air source or ground? Thanks! BTW, I love the big second floor deck.
Glad you enjoyed! They are air source heat pump, mini splits. Cost is approximately 12 K, including the exterior heat pump and one interior (mini split) head, subsequent heads cost about 2K each.
A passive house only needs one single mini split per floor however, the homeowner of this house Put an additional one in all of the bedrooms. They are all controlled individually.
@@EkoBuiltPassiveHomes great, thanks for the reply.
@@extendedp1 Our pleasure! Stay tuned for more and if you have any suggestions, please let us know ✌️
Blower door testing and air sealing leaks is under appreciated by most builders.
Absolutely correct!
Ultra low energy in ALL climates zones, depends mostly on air tightness! Passive House has proven connection details can be very simple, allowing easy air tightness in any home!
350m³/h seems pretty low volume for the ventilation system compared to how large this building is, we have pratically the same unit for a small city house. From a European perspective it's weird that there is resistive heathing (both tank and floorheathing), why would you do that? Are heatpump (air-water or water-water) solutions hard to come by in the US?
ERV sizing depends on cubic volume of air in the home. A 350 actually would still be sufficient if the house was 4000 ft.² size.
In the video we mentioned the homeowner wants to compare electric resistance with air source heat pump operation
There are many air source heat pump options in North America, also water to water no problem
That said, there’s not many options for air to water, which would be a game changer for heated floors, please let us know if you know of any of these systems where you are located
Enjoyed
The bottom bedrooms are small. Seems like a lot of wasted space but the biggest issue is its built where it snows. You should pick better building sites :)
The majority of the population in North America live where it snows lol
What I would like to see more of are 1200 sq " single level with a two bay garage.
Amazing thanks for your comment, we have a candidate and hopefully will be doing a video of it within the next couple months, Similar to our blazing star model located on this page
ekobuilt.com/ekobuilts-services/ottawa-passive-house/passive-house-plans/#smallpassive
Large roof over hangs are beautiful and protect the doors, windows and siding from rain and moisture damage.
Water is the enemy of buildings. Architects and home builders need to bring back large roof over hangs
Totally agree, 2’ should be a minimum overhang!
where's the exterior insulation?
Great video! I wanted to ask about your roof system for most of your projects. They are all generally low slope with standing seam metal roofing. Do you use snow guards to protect the gutters? I'm in a high snow load area in Canada as well.
Thanks glad you enjoyed!
Most of our customers do not install eavestrough except where the roof is sloping towards a door or entryway but that said, snow guards would be a good option if Eavestroughing is present
If protection is required, we recommend snow fence over snow diamonds as the fence is stronger
Absolutely agree with the snow fence, and thank you for the reply! What I like about your designs is that the roof massing is kept fairly minimal, which reduces material costs and allows you to use the best products, such as standing seam metal roofing. Great work!@@EkoBuiltPassiveHomes
Electrical wiring runs could look better. Wiring runs around the circuit panel look haphazzard and not up to the standards of the plumbing runs.
Well done as usual,really enjoy your video.how did you do the upstairs radiant heating?
Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for asking!
Second level radiant floor was done with hydronic tubing stapled to the subfloor and 2” concrete over pour.
This method is best for a couple reasons.
1 - Concrete poured directly on subfloor creates a stronger floor
2 - Concrete distributes the heat evenly
Howdy - we are thinking of building a passive house. Approximately how much per square is the cost to build such a house as this one?
Thanks for asking, see the link below to our cost analysis document, but this house less than $300 / ft.² including finishings
ekobuilt.com/ekobuilts-services/ottawa-passive-house/passive-house-plans/frontenac-single-family-floorplan/
Where is this home located? I'm impressed with the twenty inch thick walls and European tilt-and-turn windows. The mechanical room is tidy and well laid out too. It would be interesting to know what that siding is, and what was chosen for a roofing material. My only criticism is the size: unless a family has six or eight children the house is oversized. We call it build obesity.
My wife and I designed and built a super-insulated, passive solar off-grid home some fifteen years ago in central British Columbia. It was cutting edge for the day, with twelve inch thick walls (also insulated with blown-in cellulose) and triple-glazed windows (much more affordable All Weather vinyl windows, most of them fixed) with rainwater catchment for toilet flushing. It is a pleasure to live in and uses a tiny fraction of the energy our neighbours homes do. Yet few people I know are willing to pay for performance. Homebuyers are like children, attracted to flashy features like hot tubs, stainless appliances, granite counter-tops etc.; they are quite unwilling to pay up front for high-performance . Instead, they buy their 'dream homes' and start complaining bitterly about their enormous heating and cooling bills.
Great to hear your amazing comments!
Especially the last one which makes me think of short term, thinking “let’s build the cheapest house possible with the nicest possible finishings” the irony is - in the modern world that house will actually cost the most and be terrible for our world because of energy use/cost
Greatest thing about building a passive house now is the extremely small incremental cost to build Is more than offset with the savings and energy, etc.
The house is located just outside OTTAWA in Mississippi Mills Ontario, and regarding the size - this house was built to accommodate three families with Ukrainian refugees in mind so the reason it is naturally larger
How would a passive house built for the southern U.S. differ? High heat and high humidity are near-constants…high humidity even during the winter.
Thanks for your question. In general southern climates R value can be reduced to R45 (instead of R75)
In areas that have high humidity year-round, the vapour barrier is to be on the exterior of the home, and the open permeable membrane on the interior
That’s interesting. Thank you for replying.
@@Robot_Cajun our pleasure! Any future questions or comments just let us know ✌️
bedrooms with windows leading to the house is weird dude.
Not weird at all. Just different.
@@paulmaxwell8851 it’s not weird having windows in your bedroom, it’s just different? No it’s weird. It’s not like we are talking about punk rock compared to rock. Give me a reason to have a window in your room? There’s no reason.
He said it would be opaque glass. So privacy probably isn’t a problem. It must be part of providing natural daylight. We usually keep our bedroom blinds closed all day so it wouldn’t help much for my house.
@@ELIRAXPRT Still dumb. You need natural light in the common areas from a bedroom? Especially when theres floor to ceiling windows lol you are just rationalising something that doesn't make sense. 2 steps forward, one step back.