Thank you for featuring this high-performance project! Congratulations to Axel and Heather of Homes by Sorensen and the homeowners of Project Le0. Teamwork at its best!!
Beautiful house and I love seeing people being more mindful of their carbon footprint and the future. These homes are very common here in Germany and I hope this style becomes more and more popular over the ocean.
I liked the idea of using some of the hot water on really cold days to heat the house. My heat pump water heater uses about 350watts when running, so heating this home with only about 350watts sounds amazing.
But... you need the hot water to heat the house on the coldest days, when the COP for the air source heat pump will be at its lowest. It makes no sense. Basically you will heat with electricity in winter.
I would giggle if I had to talk about Axel too, nice catch Kween. I think you guys have a great idea going even on the high end in your niche in Canada. But if you could find a way to deliver relatively inexpensive multifamily buildings you could grow a giant interest around the world.
Amazing how much extra R value just with insulation this home needs going 800 miles north of where I live. Air sealing for passive house standards truly blows away what is commonly built elsewhere. Once a builder figures out air sealing life gets easier to get to the net zero.
Neat. Looking to possibly build a passive net zero ADU on my property that would be about 900 square ft. Wondering if something like that would be easy and cost effective. Simple design 2 bedroom 2 bath. Need to start doing more research.
Absolutely beautiful. That amount of insulation should be the standard. My preference in a new build would be putting on a heavy gauge metal roof that could last long after I'm dead and forgotten. But that's a big added cost, I understand doing shingles.
Can you explain a little more about your heat pump water heater. In the video there was s unit outside. Is this part of the water heater. My understanding about heat pump water heaters is that it takes the heat from your house. Having a unit outside will not work well when it gets below 20-25 degrees Celsius. At this point you will not have any hot water and hence no heat for your house. What am i missing?
Interesting project but 3 min 40 sec elapse before you discuss the specifics of the home. You might be better served in all respects (including marketing your firm) if you start discussing specifics within 30 sec
The walls and ceiling are very well insulated with high R ratings. But even very efficient windows have R values of 8 or less. Do passive houses like this one require special shutters to manage heat loss at night or when the sun is not on them? We tightly insulated our house to maximize efficiency but have lots of windows to the south for passive solar gain, but I am concerned we lose quite a bit of heat overnight through windows. WE are in a cold climate not so different than Calgary's.
The purpose of south facing windows on a Passive House is to gain more heat than they lose so they really rely on Solar Heat Gain during the day luckily Calgary is the sunniest city in Canada so that helps a lot. The windows in the video aren’t your normal Triple Pane Windows, they are Certified Passive House Windows. Certified Passive House Windows are guaranteed to gain more heat than they lose as long as during the day the sun shines on them. All Heat Loss & Heat Gain is calculated in an energy modeling program by Passive House called PHPP. Too much south facing windows is not a problem really for Heat Loss as long as they’re good windows. The concern is overheating even in the dead of winter. It’s a balancing act between more windows or upping the insulation in the walls & attic.
Have been looking at another Canadian company building windows. up to R14 assemblies. Doing walls is not a giant problem but windows really are the Achilles heal for getting the envelope efficient. Imagine for a moment r7 vs r14 and this is 25% of the wall area.
Hey Steve we recently did a story on LIteZone out of Edmonton. Their top end window is R22 and the one that is selling is R17 center of glass. Pretty amazing: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sCACGXAT6ik.html
Seems like no one around here builds energy efficient envelop assemeblies. But we normally only get a couple months of super cold down around freezing or super hot 90 + weeks. so coming up with right sizing the insulation package is an interesting chore
Awesome new build! Excellent to see the clients demanding a fully green home. Has anyone renovated an old house into a net zero house? We are presently renovating our 1912 house with these strategies.
An energy efficient home or business is more comfortable and saves money in the long run. Added insulation, triple glaze windows, energy efficient doors, energy efficient heating and cooling systems, energy efficient appliances, LED lighting, smart thermostats, solar panels combined with battery storage and a electric vehicle charger in the garage or car park. People are too focused on the short term costs and miss out on long term savings and comfort. Blower door testing and air sealing are under appreciated tools.Even if you have money to burn you should not waste it. Climate Change will impact everyone. Leave a better future for your children and grandchildren. Join in and speak up for the future of the planet.
though you need to be realistic. I would kill for a net zero home. But they said it adds about 60k to a home price... 60k is the max I can pay for a home, haha! I cannot wait for this stuff to become wide spread enough to be available to the poorer masses.
@@hawkenparker houses in my area start at 3mil so 60k is a very 'why not' amount. It's pretty ridiculous. I think you definitely raise a good point and you can still adopt some passive house principles without spending a lot and getting certification.
@@crazyliv Most houses I can afford are below 100k, so it's very interesting to see the other side of things. I've always accepted that new technology or ways of life start off for the wealthy, and then the poorer copy, imitate, or make it much much more affordable. It's how most things work. Hopefully this catches on quick, and efficiently!
Nice one guys. Congratulations ! The design concept of having two separate family unit suites under one roof, and sharing mechanical and other infrastructure is going to gain popularity in our common future - where resources become more and more scarce and people evolve as a result. Re. The LifeBreath max HRV - pretty sure that unit is not PH Certified, and that the claim made here that it's "85% efficient" is debatable with energy nerds. Are not the testing methodologies wildly different...? Anyway, that might be a deal breaker in terms of PH certification, however it can be argued that it matters not in the end - with the added price tag attached to the piece of paper. At a certain point (subjective) there are declining returns on investment in pursuit of extra performance, and that piece of paper may be one of them. The blower door test confirming the envelope's air-tightness, well installed insulation, and to high insulation levels, and the right insulation in places in terms of embedded energy (cellulose - check!, EPS - over all other foams - check!), triple pane windows (domestically produced too!), you're ticking all the boxes. And with Calgary's hot summers it will be interesting to see how the house performs in terms of keeping much of that heat from penetrating the roof structure (the rooftop PV panels should help, also), and ultimately the home's cooling load, relative to code built McHousing. Well done ! Respect from west Quebec
My only critique is maybe using a metal roof and avoiding asphalt (petroleum-based). Also, some metal roof designs can avoid penetrations into the roof for solar panels.
We looked into these options, but the cost increase from an LCA perspective was not worth the difference to us. Making these more affordable and having the right ratio of build impacts to operation impacts is what we thought to be the most important aspect. The cumulative impacts of making this more affordable is where the real environmental difference could occur.
bit torn here... r50 walls?---great! except that's the insulated portion between the studs that wick all your heat away to the outside, & they have no mass like ICF (which would score lower on a blower-door test too. HRV?---great! except w/o using the earth's steady temp to draw 55-65f air from, your temp delta in Canada could be 80f+. triple-pane tilt/swing windows? great!---except it wasn't mentioned if they were positioned for solar heat gain & minimized on other walls to combat heat loss. ...with the title including "Anatomy", i guess i expected a real breakdown of all the steps taken & decisions made to maximise efficiency. instead, it seems a mostly traditional house with really thick walls, expensive windows, and a MASSIVE solar array to counter it's lack of genuine efficiency.
The panels are most because its an all electric home and likely tried to factor in the household. It also is practice to offset the studs for a double all system - so its only the top and bottom plate. But they should have clarified the effective vs nominal R-value. I'm curious on the heating decision as well. If it just wasn't deemed necessary or if there was something else at play. That looks like an air source heat pump for the water, and as far as I could tell there isn't a backup if it hits too could for it to work, and the tank isn't shown as well.
To meet Passive House certification the house has to hit a bunch of points. They didn't get into the nitty gritty here. It's definitely an interesting topic, but it's pretty technical and information dense. I imagine that this video is more geared towards generating interest than providing information.
@@jonathanburr9798 I don't know the specifics, but if it's done right, you don't need a typical furnace. The idea behind "Passive House" standards is that the majority of heating and cooling of the home is as the name implies- passive. The house should more or less maintain a constant temperature with very minimal need for appliances that run off of gas, electricity, wood, etc.
The problem of a passive house is that you need air recirculation or it will mold badly. Mold ,aside from looking gross,can be deadly. Basically new homes look like laboratories
There is air circulation, it’s just technological instead of manual (opening a door or window). Air circulation can be established without cutting giant holes in the walls and ceiling, LOL
He should not be standing on the peak of the roof at the end of the video. That's a no-no. I have to assume they reinforced the roof peak so he can walk there to maintain the panels.
Folks either way you look at it your paying. Either up front premium construction cost OR back end energy costs. One home gains value the other loses value. You decide.
Even if we took out the eco aspect of it. People spend over 90% of their time indoors, especially in Alberta where it is winter for half the year. Having no hot, cold spots, or drafts is well worth and definitely adds to house value on resale. My traditional built house in Edmonton has a 2C difference between upstairs and downstairs, and it's even worse compared basement. It is also a dream for prepers. All the natural gas lines could blow up tomorrow and people in this home would not care.
Project Leo comes in at 10% more expensive. The mortgage cost per month of that increase is entirely offset by the renewables savings and utility hookups. So on a per month basis (the real metric that matters to people) we are a 0% increase to be net-zero. We are completing an LCA for the environmental impacts of the build (as well as operation). This will quantify the impacts of building the house vs a code built comparable. We are expecting the environmental impact for upgrades to be less than 3 years of the operation. So the "materials and waste" are completely worth the impacts they initially create. It would be like receiving a 97% return on your investment, but for the environment.
@@kino_cinante A preper's dream home is made with rammed earth. Cheap, bullet proof (literally), weather proof, won't degrade for 1000+ years, readily available materials and more energy efficient than any home you can build if done properly. I guess it makes me sad to see that we ignore proven and highly eco-friendly building techniques in favor of what is essentially a traditional house with more insulation.
@@bengt_axle Oh my... YES YES !!! - in the morning it heats up with the sun coming up, then I get super warm in my bed and have to ask Google to turn on the FAN. Then it turns on the fan, and cold air blows from the ceiling and hits me so I get cold and awake two hours before alarm rings.... Then I just get up and start the day early, ask Google to turn on the coffee-machine, making some strong coffee with milk, tell Google to turn on the lights while I walk around opening windows and doors just to get real temperature in. And of course, the damn pipes are full of dust from clothes and whatnot, so a few hours later I have to ask Google to vacuum clean every floor cuz is full of dust and bunnies falling out from the fan like a mafaqqa. Welcome to Passive House - Dumbest construction system ever invented for humans.
@@fyrstikkenofnorway2744 why don’t you just turn off Google and open one or two windows slightly? I think you could solve your problem with just some natural ventilation holes. Maybe an opening in the wall with a louvred panel outside over it to break the wind. You leave it open as long as it is not too cold, so as to create a convection of fresh air. Newer designs are trying to reduce this problem by making the house more breathable (gas permeable) through the walls. They use special paint in place of a vapour barrier.
@@crazyliv I'm saying BTU is a BTU and to heat a 2,000 SQ Ft house with electricity only would take 40,000 watts. Unless your ok with it taking 6 hours to warm Everytime you open the door
@@electromechanicalstuff2602 we have passive houses in much colder climates though and they stay warm very easily. The point is they warm up just from the sun and a small amount of energy and then the heat doesn't escape. Even if opening the door. I live in one now in Germany. They're very common here. We also have underfloor heating. I'm moving to Canada and planning to build one there too becsuse they're so comfortable and nice to live in.
We filmed the story during the new hot summer. Since the home is so well insulated it keeps the heat out in summer as well as it keeps it in in the winter. With door wide open for a good part of the hot day in summer and with the heat pump not hooked up yet the home stayed very cool all day. That's the beauty of these homes. A simple heat pump can keep them warm in winter and cool in summer.