Part 2: What is a Passive House?

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Passive House Heating Load In our last blog post, we talked a little bit about Passive House as a building standard. We also discussed the first primary benchmark for Passive House certification, which is reducing air leakage to less than 0.6 Air Changes per Hour (ACH) at 50pa pressure. The second benchmark for certification deals with total heating and cooling load. This distinguishes Passive House from the well-known "net-zero" standard, which simply requires the house to produce as much energy as it consumes. Passive House caps heating load at 15kwh per square meter annually, regardless of energy source. This means…

What is a Passive House?

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We are nearing completion on our first Passive House, and we get a lot of questions about what exactly that means. Without getting too technical, I’d like to present a quick overview! Passive House Standard Passive House is essentially an energy efficiency standard, the same way that R2000 or Energy Star are. It doesn’t address sustainability like LEED does, it is strictly an energy consumption model. The Passive House standard is unique in that it measures finished building performance, instead of prescribing a particular building method. Home builders can design around locally available materials and environmental conditions. Passive House originated…

What You Should Know About Foundation Waterproofing & Prep

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What you should know about foundation waterproofing? Foundation waterproofing on a new home is usually unseen, often not understood, and really shouldn’t be an issue that concerns the buyer. It often is a concern, however, especially in the Edmonton region and the western suburbs such as Spruce Grove and Stony Plain. This is because rapid growth is making good development land expensive, and as costs climb, developers are choosing to work with lower, wetter, ground that might not have been considered in a different economic environment. Building in low or seasonally saturated areas increases the costs of building the home,…

Passive House Renovation – Giving You The New Home Feeling

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We are currently working on design and engineering for our first Passive House renovation! This unique project will involve an engineered and fully insulated concrete foundation, moving an existing home onto the new foundation, and then completing a small addition, complete new exterior shell, and refinishing the home with James Hardie siding and a steel roof. Keep an eye out for further developments!

From a Renovation Company to Home Construction

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Byron Mosher was born and raised here in Alberta, and has pursued his passion for home building for most of his life. Since his first project building a family home with his dad and brothers at 11 years old, he has been directly involved in the construction and renovation of hundreds of homes in both Alberta and B.C. Byron loves to research, and is particularly interested in the impact of new technology and building materials on modern homes. As a husband and the father of three small children, he understands the value of time, and looks for ideas that reduce…