For us air tightness takes a bit of precedence.
Note taken: Point was to shift status from size to smarter lifestyle. It's always hard to see stuff when you live it.
Thanks
Would be great if you had some blog posts about the decisions behind the engineering.
I'm pretty interested in this stuff and would be curious for example how you arrive at ZE given different consumption patterns with different people. I see a lot of people pointing at solar as their low hanging fruit whereas I'm much more of the mindset that minimizing temperature variance is much more important.
Doing pretty good with my current house already but would love to see more pointers towards a more rigorous approach towards insulation, air tightness etc.
The technical challenges are in retrofit.
You might find Energiesprong (http://energiesprong.nl/transitionzero/) of interest - basically factory manufactured walls with joinery, move to site, crane on.
Yes, blogging is due, much to share.
Reducing consumption is first step, not getting caught up by what's cool is a big factor too. Rigor is required
Imo, air tightness trumps r value. Hard to do either consistently with traditional construction. Stay tuned I'll try to more on the blog.
PH is an extremely worthy initiative, but I can't help think it's ripe for a bit of disruption. The whole certification process adds needless cost to a build/retrofit and doesn't help with the perception of high performance homes being expensive.
There's no real reason PH has to be more expensive than anything else. Just that volume housebuilders won't be able to pay minimum wages to people they find on the street any more...
Good article here- http://www.energyvanguard.com/blog-building-science-HERS-BPI...
PH is performance based, but the religion is a bit excessive on R. I do greatly value the air tightness and the quantitative approach.
High R-Value walls are tough to build and get expensive quick. Double wall, exterior sheathing, more parts, more fasteners, etc. We use SIPS walls/roof that have very good R, very little thermal bridging and outstanding air tightness while being fast to build.
EDIT: Also, the line about "the home being a status symbol but you get a smaller home for the feels and the same status symbol effect" struck me as odd and somewhat off-putting.