[Greenbuilding] passive house in NY

[Frank Tettemer]

I expect that most of their heating bill goes to heating the air Above 
their heads.  I like the feeling of a "soaring ceiling" but in my house, 
that means an elevated peak over the dining table of 11'-6" only.  I 
know that if that house is well insulated, then heat stratification 
probably won't occur to a huge degree, but still ...

Call me a prude, but I can't feel good about using 12" of foam on all 
those tall walls.  Give me 21 inches of well-stuffed and plastered bale 
walls any day.
Yet $400 is not a bad result.  (How much did they have to pay per sq. 
ft. to get to that place of energy economy I wonder?)

Thanks for posting that article.  It's a good "sample" to discuss.
Cheers,
Frank

Frank Tettemer
Living Sol ~ Building and Design
www.livingsol.com
613 756 3884

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Reuben said:
Well, I don't know.
I just figured that if someone spends as much money as that house 
appears to have cost on a _Passive House_ that _exceeds the standards_ 
and still ends up using about as much as my family uses in  my crummy 
shack then that seems, well, odd.
I of course know that the occupants' behaviors and habits are really 
important to this calculation (something predictably elided in the 
article), but still.
I want to think that a whiz-bang passive house we're led to believe is 
the future (the article even said that I think) would do better, would 
use a miniscule amount of fossil fuels.
The average annual kWh consumption in my zipcode in Portland in 2008 was 
8,472kWh for SF houses, and 3,867 kWh for MF dwellings. But the range 
includes plenty below 1,000 kWh/yr, and those are mostly Multi Family 
dwellings.

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 5:31 PM, Michael O'Brien <obrien at hevanet.com 
<mailto:obrien at hevanet.com>> wrote:

    Hi, Reuben--

    If the $400 is for all the home's energy, not just heating, why does
    that seem out of line? If it is all for electricity, that would be
    about 4000 kWh at our rates, or about one-third the average
    household use in Portland.

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