Passively Green

This green home will heat itself
"The Passive House approach is very techie, which I think is its Achilles Heel--it appeals to geeks but not the layman, the lay builder," Hare said standing in the half-finished home last month. "We can prove we can do this without hiring consultants and using software to do the energy modeling. We'll just use precedent and established rules of thumb."

Passive House
By achieving the Passivhaus standards, qualified buildings are able to dispense with conventional heating systems. While this is an underlying objective of the Passivhaus standard, some type of heating will still be required and most Passivhaus buildings do include a system to provide supplemental space heating. This is normally distributed through the low-volume heat recovery ventilation system that is required to maintain air quality, rather than by a conventional hydronic or high-volume forced-air heating system, as described in the space heating section below.

Passive Solar House Designs - Pictures
A collection of images of Passive Houses.