passive-haus / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

First Passive House in BC Whistler

B.C.’s First Passive House was built in Whistler in 2012.

The Rainbow Duplex in Whistler is the first Passive House in BC The passive solar design and orientation of homes is anything but new. Solar heat collection is a technique that has been used in home construction for thousands of years. What is relatively new is the rating system developed to certify them. The Passive H...

Multi Unit Passive House design Vancouver Island BC
Passive House

The North Park Passive House on Vancouver Island, BC

Passive House construction on Vancouver Island Building the first certified Passive House on Vancouver Island, a duplex shared with our son Mark’s family, convinced us that the market in Victoria was ready for Passive House market condominiums. To follow through, we built the North Park Passive house, a six-unit urban ...

Prefab LEED Passive House Kit Homes the Future of House Building?
Passive House

Prefab Passive House & LEED ready kit homes - the future of home building?

Prefab Home kits are ideal for Passive House or LEED certified homes Écohabitation the French language Quebec affiliates of EcoHome, in conjunction with experienced Architects & Kit home manufacturers, have launched a series of Canadian Manufactured stylish & affordable, prefabricated sustainable green kit home...

Resilient home construction - Kenogami House of the Year
Efficient home design

"The Most Resilient House in North America"

A resilient home for Sustainability Northern Quebec isn’t a place where one might expect to look for a model of resilience. It’s bone-chilling cold in the winter with 10,450 heating degree days per year (Fahrenheit degree-days, base 65°F); there isn’t all that much sunlight in the winter, and Quebec—let alone northern ...

Passive Solar Home design at it's best - Kenogami House - EcoHome
Passive solar home design

Ecohome Kenogami House wins Home of the Year Award

Along with its unprecedented achievements, the Kenogami House continues to act as a laboratory for resilient, cold climate building practices. Through software energy modeling it was determined that the Kenogami House would likely require 14.6 kWh of heat per square metre per year, but its actual performance seems to b...

Passive solar heating & cooling in Homes has a long history in USA
Passive solar home design

Passive house and passive solar - free heat for homes

What is Passive Solar Heating & Cooling? Passive heating and cooling of homes is not new. The above image is of Mesa Verde National Park, the Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings in Colorado, occupied from 700 to 1300 AD. This early North American settlement was shaded from the summer sun, but fully exposed to the su...

Passive House on a Budget - The Damn Near Passive house
Passive House

The Un-certified but 'Damn Near' Passive House.

What is a Passive House? The term 'passive house' refers to an extremely high performing energy efficient home, in the sense that the heating and cooling is largely passive. To achieve this, homes have to be designed to take advantage of the free heat available from the sun, and heavily fortified with insulation to han...

Canada's first LEED V4 Platinum certified home - The Edelweiss House
LEED Homes

Canada's first LEED V4 Platinum house - An Ecohome project checklist

A LEED Platinum home project overview As building rating systems drive building codes to greater levels of performance, the rating systems themselves need a periodic upgrade to stay ahead of the curve; enter LEED version 4 (V4.) This latest version of the LEED rating system involved a comprehensive overhaul and to ensu...

The birthplace of Passive House solar home design The Saskatchewan Conservation
Passive solar home design

Saskatchewan: The birthplace of Passive House and passive solar home design

Passive House design, how does it work? If you've ever sat in a car with black leather seats in the summer, particularly when wearing shorts, you already understand passive solar heat gain. It is a very simple concept that as a building technique dates back thousands of years. You simply need to find out where south is...

Passive House in Quebec
Passive House

The Passive-Aggressive House - Our History of a Passivhaus Build

First, the background to this Passivhaus My partner and I are geeks. Our idea of a romantic dream was to build a house so well insulated you could heat it with a hairdryer. For added fun, we wanted to do this on a tight budget while raising a young child. The hairdryer part wasn’t a pipe dream – it’s a common way of de...

Passive House certification - PHI or PHIUS? The Spring House Passive House
Passive House

Everything you need to know about Passive House certification

What is Passive House certification? The term “Passive House” was once obscure jargon used solely by construction engineers & technically-minded home designers, but now "certified Passive House" is being increasingly specified by construction professionals and homeowners across North America. The concept of Passive...