I live and own a passive house: Feel free to ask questions :)
Do you find yourself having to think about “optimal use” of the house? Or can you just live your life as you would have prior to ownership and reap the benefits of the engineering?
Most of the time I don’t think about it at all. There is have a central ventilation system with a heat exchanger. So I don’t even have to think about opening the windows for fresh air.
Can you address any of the intuitive concerns around the air freshness and getting enough O2 and removing enough CO2 ?
How much is the air exchange process a complex active process that you need to monitor and maintain, or is it pretty basic and “just works”?
I would say “Pretty basic just works” it was adjusted during construction of the house and as long as you don’t do any fundamental changes to ventilation system there is no need to readjust.
To people who says “they aren’t airtight” are not correct. Living in a country where building houses like this is the norm I can say that they are build to be as airtight as possible to keep in humidity and thereby heat inside. What makes them livable and not a humid moldy plastic bag is a well tuned mechanical ventilation system with a heat regeneration system (air cross flow system, really simple actually) that recovers most of the heat. The ventilation system runs 24/7 and keep the air fresh, more fresh than most conventional houses in fact if it’s tuned correctly that is. But yes the house is as airtight as posible and they pressure test them to ensure they meet the standards. The biggest issue with it is actually cooling them. We have issues here in summer because no method of removing heat is properly implemented yet. But in winter it’s awesome. My heating bill is practically 0.
Genuine question: if they’re airtight, how do oxygen and CO2 levels remain livable? Spacecraft and submersibles require oxygen supply and CO2 scrubbers to keep occupants alive.
how do oxygen and CO2 levels remain livable?
The ventilation system was explained.
I suppose what trips me up is that my brain sees the concepts of “airtight” and “ventilated” to be in conflict and I am seeking further clarification than what has already been provided.
The idea is that air exchange mostly happens through a heat exchanger, so the air leaving the house warms up the air that is entering the house, for this to actually work all other parts of the place need to be airtight, because otherwise your heat escapes.
