Big Win for Passive House: Washington State Passes HB 1183
HB 1183: A Key Step for Passive House in Washington Washington State has recently passed HB 1183, a landmark bill aimed at supporting Passive House construction. This bill addresses major challenges in building energy-efficient homes by reducing barriers in local……
Which is worse, metal through-wall flashing or a big ‘ole insulation gap?
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This holds true for building science details as well. As best-practice research from Passive construction standards is making its way into mainstream building codes, there are some simple (yet elusive) mentality shifts……
Construction Moisture Management: Catch Up or Lawyer Up
Moisture in buildings has become increasingly worrisome for construction professionals in recent years. American buildings are subject to a wide variety of defects related to water in its different forms – liquid, vapor and sometimes snow and ice. These range……
The Window as a “Solar Panel”: Light Transmittance & Solar Factor G
With this article, we cover two very important aspects of glazings: light transmission and the solar heat gain coefficient. These parameters are extremely important for performing buildings and passive houses, however they are often overlooked by both designers and window…
The glass edge thermal bridge: the PSIg value
We continue our series of articles on thermal efficiency of windows, describing the glass edge thermal bridge. As far as thermal bridges go, this one is inevitable, and it represents the weakest point of a well designed thermal envelope. It…
Energy efficiency of windows: the Uf value
After covering thermal transmittance U and resistance R of opaque assemblies, and insulated glass, we now cover one of the most critical areas of the thermal envelope: window frames. Good windows are the cornerstone of a performing building for both…
Insulation materials: discovering the lambda value
The lambda value of a material indicates its ability to transfer heat: this property is therefore very important in the design of highly performing buildings and passive houses. The information commonly available is unfortunately quite confusing: with this article, we'll…
What’s an insulation material?
With more and more people talking about building energy efficiency and passive houses, it has become more and more common to hear about insulation. In this article, we explain what an insulation material is, to try and shed some light……
Certified construction system for Passive Houses
The construction system certification is possibly the least known certification offered by the Passivhaus Institut, and yet it can help spreading passive buildings all over the world. We worked on the first system certification for passive houses in a warm…
PHPP 9: a misunderstanding?
At the 2015 International Passive House Conference in Leipzig, Germany, the Passivhaus Institut presented version 9 of PHPP, which includes many new features to design passive buildings. Many articles have been written about the new primary energy method and the…