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<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Yes that is pretty firm. <br/><p>Sent from my BlackBerry®</p><hr/><div><b>From: </b> "George J. Nesbitt" <george@houseisasystem.com>
</div><div><b>Date: </b>Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:40:49 -0800</div><div><b>To: </b>jfstraube<jfstraube@gmail.com></div><div><b>ReplyTo: </b> george@houseisasystem.com
</div><div><b>Cc: </b>Green Building<greenbuilding@lists.bioenergylists.org></div><div><b>Subject: </b>Re: [Greenbuilding] Aggressively Passive: Building Homes to thePassive
House Standard</div><div><br/></div>
And rumor is you and Joe will be in Stockton in June<span
class="moz-smiley-s1"><span> :-) </span></span><br>
<br>
On 1/11/2011 12:22 PM, jfstraube wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:32BEF073-E14E-4557-8DB9-0B5484116DC7@gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div>Hi George. Thanks for your comments! Appreciate the chance
to stretch my brain with this conversation. Not sure, but I
think I will be in the Bay area doing a PG&E thing in April.</div>
<div>You say:</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<blockquote
cite="mid:2B11A30D-DE7A-40AA-A1D6-C88D4668F48A@civmail.uwaterloo.ca"
type="cite">
<div>1. 120 kWh/m2/yr of source energy</div>
</blockquote>
This is for your all of your energy at your building site. And
using the U.S. DOE average for source energy conversions need
to be entered replacing the E.U. #'s. And the appropriate #'s
for Canada should also be used.</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<div>Where is this documented? The PHPP spreadsheet and
handbook I purchased from the Katrin's PHIUS show 2.7 and I
cant find PHIUS documenting anything else. Are you told these
things as part of the secret initiation rites?</div>
<div>I use values of 3.365 for electric, 1.092 for gas and 1.0
for PV as US average values based on the extensive research
work by NREL"</div>
<div>"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;
font-size: 22px;"><b>Source Energy and Emission Factors for
Energy Use in Buildings</b></span></div>
<div><span class="f"><cite>www.<b>nrel</b>.gov/docs/fy07osti/38617.pdf</cite></span></div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<blockquote
cite="mid:2B11A30D-DE7A-40AA-A1D6-C88D4668F48A@civmail.uwaterloo.ca"
type="cite">
<div>2. 15 kWh/m2/yr of annual space heating demand</div>
</blockquote>
and 15 kWh/m2/yr for space cooling, this and heating are
based on site energy use (as opposed to source energy)</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>I am pretty sure the value is demand, not consumption.
Energy demand is always site energy by definition since it is
demand, energy consumption can be site or source and vary all
over the place.</div>
<div>So a better line might have been</div>
<div>2. 15 kWh/m2/yr of space heating and 15 or cooling energy
demand. </div>
<div>I am not clear if this means I can use 30 for space
conditioning, or that the cooling should be part of the 15
budget. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The pressure test is a lot like the ASTM E779 because it
was written directly from this standard, and in fact the ASTM
standard is a direct copy from CGSB 149.1, the original
Canadian standard. Like a game of telephone, a few things
changed but nothing meaningful.</div>
<div>The requirement of 1 Pa is a bit of a joke, as it is rare
to find anyone who can actually accurately measure 1 Pa. The
number must have been chosen because it is a round number, as
like most PH recommendations I can find no science to support
it. While Feist is much more flexible and reasonable than
regional PH bodies, I am surprised to to hear that he says
this is a requirement: it is not in the list of requirements
in the documents. Katrin insists that an 80% HRV is required
(which could save a lot of energy relative to supply or
exhaust). To get the same air quality with a supply or
exhaust only system you need to use more airflow. That is a
scientifically proven as well as common sense fact. And/or you
need to circulate the air through the home more regularly.
But I digress.</div>
<div>The changing requirements and recommendations and lack of
documentation of what is what is maddening to me. The claim is
that PH is rigorous, but following the online forums and
looking at this myself, it is remarkable imprecise and open to
"Fesit told me I should do this" and "Klingenberg say I must
have this", etc. Which is not the sign of a mature program.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<blockquote
cite="mid:2B11A30D-DE7A-40AA-A1D6-C88D4668F48A@civmail.uwaterloo.ca"
type="cite">You have to meet 120 kWh/m2/yr site energy
regardless of PV.</blockquote>
Correct, end of sentence</div>
</blockquote>
The PHPP handbook and spreadsheet both allow PV to be entered
and account for it as 0.7. I can provide the tab and cell
number if you cant find this reference.</div>
<div>The energy thus generated is simply not allow to reduce the
120 number for reasons that numerous online chat groups to to
divine, because there is apparently no official and certainly
no scientific reasoning behind it.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> You have achieved an
equivalent level of performance, an energy efficient house,
and that's is what we all should be trying to achieve, no
mater what we call it!<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>This is the root of my concerns. Here are some of the high
level approaches I would take:</div>
Seems to me, the number that matters is source energy per
person, not per square meter. The heating restriction is simply
illogical, as it does not matter what it is (from the
environments point of view) if the source number is maintained.</div>
<div>The problem with per person measures is that we dont know the
number of people. Most codes use bedrooms + 1 as the number of
people.</div>
<div>In Denmark they have moved towards using a formula of the
sort:</div>
<div>X kWh + Y kWh/m2. </div>
<div>Which rewards small houses, and penalized large houses if X
is large enough and Y small enough. Energy Star version 3 will
simply penalize people for every square foot over 2200 (the
average)</div>
<div>Various countries have different laws for how to measure TFA:
the values of X and Y should be modified to result in the same
target between countries, reflecting existing real estate and
tax law methods of measuring TFA (Canada and US are the same,
Germany is unique).</div>
<div>In Sweden, such an approach was suggested, with two different
sets of values, one for the colder part of the country (like our
Zone 7) and one for the warmer (like our Zone 5/6).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Until PV reaches around 20% of total annual market supply
(decades or further in the future and a happy time), the factor
for PV should scientifically be 1.0 or 0.97 (to account for some
losses). The value for wood or biomass on site, should be zero,
and the value for biomass from off site should be some non-zero
value (the 0.2 value in PHPP seems as good as any guess).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate;
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<div>John Straube</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.BuildingScience.com">www.BuildingScience.com</a></div>
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</blockquote>
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