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What are the actual benefits of a 'passive house'?

On my lunchtime walk around town I pass by a construction site on a local residential street where an old house has been demolished and a couple of ‘passive houses’ are being built on the patch of land. 


I don’t know an awful lot about passive houses but I’m wondering if they are really worth the £699,995 price tag that’s being asked for them? 


They’re basically a three bedroom bungalow with two bedrooms in the roof space (dormers and skylight as windows) and one bedroom downstairs with an open plan kitchen/diner/lounge. A standard three bedroom house in the town goes for anywhere around £300 to £400k.


Can you really justify the extra £300k+ price tag for a passive house’? 

Parents
  • mapj1:


    Ideally houses need to get bigger, not smaller, with some space for kids to play etc.  more than one 'home office' room and have the provision to include all the facilities that one would expect to enjoy at an office-like  place of work.  

     



    In comparison Mike, there's a lovely riverside development in a town 15 minutes drive away. The houses are large 4 story semi detached town houses with a ground floor layout perfect for home office working and to keep some form of 'boundary' between home and office life. I walk past them frequently on my walks up and down the riverbank and day dream of what it would be like to live in one and spend a summers evening on the 1st floor terrace overlooking the riverside. ? 


    At £545,000 they're still way out of my price range but I know which house I'd rather be living in!

    David Learmonth‍ - thank you for your reply. It's great to hear first hand experiences from someone who actually lives in a Passivhaus ?. How does it deal with condensation though? Given that it's relatively airtight? When I bought my own house there was a few patches of 'damp' that were attributed by the previous owners to a failing damp course (my house is 146 years old) but we rectified it by simply increasing ventilation. The previous owners had double glazing installed but none of the windows had vents in them so the damp was in fact caused purely by condensation build up.
Reply
  • mapj1:


    Ideally houses need to get bigger, not smaller, with some space for kids to play etc.  more than one 'home office' room and have the provision to include all the facilities that one would expect to enjoy at an office-like  place of work.  

     



    In comparison Mike, there's a lovely riverside development in a town 15 minutes drive away. The houses are large 4 story semi detached town houses with a ground floor layout perfect for home office working and to keep some form of 'boundary' between home and office life. I walk past them frequently on my walks up and down the riverbank and day dream of what it would be like to live in one and spend a summers evening on the 1st floor terrace overlooking the riverside. ? 


    At £545,000 they're still way out of my price range but I know which house I'd rather be living in!

    David Learmonth‍ - thank you for your reply. It's great to hear first hand experiences from someone who actually lives in a Passivhaus ?. How does it deal with condensation though? Given that it's relatively airtight? When I bought my own house there was a few patches of 'damp' that were attributed by the previous owners to a failing damp course (my house is 146 years old) but we rectified it by simply increasing ventilation. The previous owners had double glazing installed but none of the windows had vents in them so the damp was in fact caused purely by condensation build up.
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