The problem with US homes
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This lower tech passive house in Maine has a more reasonable price.
www.mainepublic.org
This Maine home can stay 70 degrees without a furnace, even when it's freezing outside
With extra insulation and lots of sun, a passive house in the town of Hope is able to maintain an indoor temperature of around 70 degrees without the use of a furnace.
www.mainepublic.org
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
They claim 10% cost increase. Pretty reasonable just make the house 15% smaller and you are already saving moneyThis lower tech passive house in Maine has a more reasonable price.
This Maine home can stay 70 degrees without a furnace, even when it's freezing outside
With extra insulation and lots of sun, a passive house in the town of Hope is able to maintain an indoor temperature of around 70 degrees without the use of a furnace.
I would have thought it was closer to 20-25% Windows and doors are expensive. Basically that’s probably less than a kitchen renovation. And I think the arguments made here are convincing that you really don’t even need to meet the passive house standards just get close and throw up extra solar panels. Again now YouTubers were involved in the building of that passive house. I will say I’m not a huge fan of how it looks.
I think the most interesting detail in the story is that GO Logic builds assemblies off site. If they get a decent looking house they can sell quite a few. Waldo ME isn’t in a great location for them to become a large home builder but I bet they have a full build schedule for quite some time.
I took a course a year or two ago and the claims by Go Logic do not line up with the course content I had listened to. Some of the games played is that the many Passive home builders use a heavilly insulated slab rather than a conventional foundation, thus square foot costs are not typically apples to apples with a conventional home. Granted a basement space is frequently not included in living space but it means that the homeowner either needs to make up this space requirement elsewhere or just live with far less space. A true "Passive house" has to be third party certified and accepted prior to start of construction and a third party inspector has to hired to visit the site frequently. In general, at high latitudes relying on 7 or 8 hours of sunlight in the winter means a major overkill on insulation and windows. The windows typically specified are european and very costly.
Unless someone wants to the Passive House Certificate, Zero Energy Homes are a bit less costly (albeit still a premium, they can use less insulation and high performing US sourced windows. The use solar panels and net metering to provide the house all its energy needs over the course of the year. The next less costly step is the the "pretty good house" concept that goes for some supplemental heating or cooling with energy efficient construction where cost benefit is taken into account. It too will be a premium to standard constuction but the premium is usually paid back in years instead of centuries.
The reality in the US is that housing is rarely built for family dynasties, for most folks, a home is probably a 20 to 30 year investment before they move on, rarely is the home taken over by the next generation. At least in my area, a Passive or Zero Energy House will not sell for a substantial premium, if anything it will sell for less as they tend to have fewer windows and less interior space. What sells are the contemporaries with lots of glass for views and high ceilings despite their energy bills.
I am considering building a new home and the reality is at my age (63) I at best will have 20 years to enjoy it before I move on. Maybe my heirs will like it but expect the real estate sign will go up long before they would ever move into it. For a quarter of the price, I could do a major energy retrofit and remodel of my 30 year old current home which still has unfinished rooms and get close to zero energy and save a lot of property taxes. I would do that retrofit myself compared to paying a contractor to build a new place and expect the quality of my work would exceed the typical contractors work (like most areas, contractors are in short supply and the good ones are working about 30 miles away on high 6 to low 7 figure second homes).
Unless someone wants to the Passive House Certificate, Zero Energy Homes are a bit less costly (albeit still a premium, they can use less insulation and high performing US sourced windows. The use solar panels and net metering to provide the house all its energy needs over the course of the year. The next less costly step is the the "pretty good house" concept that goes for some supplemental heating or cooling with energy efficient construction where cost benefit is taken into account. It too will be a premium to standard constuction but the premium is usually paid back in years instead of centuries.
The reality in the US is that housing is rarely built for family dynasties, for most folks, a home is probably a 20 to 30 year investment before they move on, rarely is the home taken over by the next generation. At least in my area, a Passive or Zero Energy House will not sell for a substantial premium, if anything it will sell for less as they tend to have fewer windows and less interior space. What sells are the contemporaries with lots of glass for views and high ceilings despite their energy bills.
I am considering building a new home and the reality is at my age (63) I at best will have 20 years to enjoy it before I move on. Maybe my heirs will like it but expect the real estate sign will go up long before they would ever move into it. For a quarter of the price, I could do a major energy retrofit and remodel of my 30 year old current home which still has unfinished rooms and get close to zero energy and save a lot of property taxes. I would do that retrofit myself compared to paying a contractor to build a new place and expect the quality of my work would exceed the typical contractors work (like most areas, contractors are in short supply and the good ones are working about 30 miles away on high 6 to low 7 figure second homes).
Ashful
Minister of Fire
1500 square feet? That's a living room, not a house!This lower tech passive house in Maine has a more reasonable price.
This Maine home can stay 70 degrees without a furnace, even when it's freezing outside
With extra insulation and lots of sun, a passive house in the town of Hope is able to maintain an indoor temperature of around 70 degrees without the use of a furnace.
It's an interesting exercise, but it needs to be replicated on something a bit bigger, for practical consideration.
Most people can get by with houses that aren’t 3000+ sqft. I personally wouldn’t want a house much more than 2000. My current house is 1584sqft and I feel it’s a nice size.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
‘Merica!! (See thread title… problem may not just be related to the house)
As a family of 7 we’d have a hard time in 2000 sq ft but if we were to adopt a less stuff mindset I bet we could get by but I’d probably have to have hand in designing the house.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I drove a 26 horsepower car, my first time working in Germany. I could "get by" with it, but I prefer our 500 horsepower American muscle.
I agree some of our houses can be "too big", ours certainly falls into that category. But I don't think I would be happy living as a family of four or five in 1500 sq.ft., either. About 1000 sf per occupant would be my happy middle-ground, if building custom.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Yep... you could "get by", like folks in Russia and former East Germany! I have friends who grew up with entire families in 500 sf apartments in Stollberg and Zwickau. They called them "workers shoeboxes", and they "got by"!‘Merica!! (See thread title… problem may not just be related to the house)
As a family of 7 we’d have a hard time in 2000 sq ft but if we were to adopt a less stuff mindset I bet we could get by but I’d probably have to have hand in designing the house.
Depends on location. Homes in cold areas tend to be smaller. It's the average size of homes in NY state. It wouldn't surprise me if over half of h.com members live in 1600 sq ft or smaller homes.
How Big Is Your Home? Here Is the Average Home Size by State
Are you curious about how big homes are in different states? Read on to learn how your home stacks up.
www.fool.com
Most Building codes are for Safety not energy efficiency. With all of the Home builders out there, most are looking to build out at minimal cost. Also, the US has significantly more diverse regional climates than most other countries. Any regulations for energy efficiency would need to come at the state level versus Federal. The requirements in Alaska, Maine, Florida etc are vastly different.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Good point. Excluding crazy-expensive Hawaii, which bucks all trends, the list I just Googled does seem to show more of the extremely cold states toward the bottom of the list. It's not a hard/fast rule, there's a lot of economics involved I'm sure, but it does seem to weight that way.Depends on location. Homes in cold areas tend to be smaller. It's the average size of homes in NY state. It wouldn't surprise me if over half of h.com members live in 1600 sq ft or smaller homes.
How Big Is Your Home? Here Is the Average Home Size by State
Are you curious about how big homes are in different states? Read on to learn how your home stacks up.
An even bigger factor might be age, as at least around here, houses built in the 1950's or 1960's are very small compared to anything built 1990's or later. I'm not exaggerating when I say the average square footage ratios might be 2x-3x, between those date ranges.
But my point remains, that exercises in small totally passive houses are more interesting for the information they can give us on pushing the envelope, than in their practicality for most people. I don't think there's a good economic case for building one, with today's fuel prices, but things we learn from them could be applied to make "pretty good" houses of more typical (modern) standards.
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sloeffle
Minister of Fire
I've had one issue with my geo system in the last 12 years. A $5 ( if that ) capacitor went bad that was replaced under warranty. I did have to pay for labor.
Lots of slick geo salesmen out there. My guess is, he / she / they didn't do their homework well enough before buying.
Worse than that, he bought the house new from a builder who specialized in 'green' townhomes with all the bells and whistles, and poor attention to detail.
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