The Passive House

Once or twice a year I see a new article about passive house design, and wonder why I don’t hear more about the idea.  It seems like such an obvious and simple concept:

There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in.  There is, in fact, no furnace. [...]

The concept of the passive house [...] approaches the challenge from a different angle.  Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in.  That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.

And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses. [...]

But the sophisticated windows and heat-exchange ventilation systems needed to make passive houses work properly are not readily available in the United States.  So the construction of passive houses in the United States, at least initially, is likely to entail a higher price differential.

I guess it can’t help already-built homes, though, so it’s not much good for most people.