General

Passive Houses are well planned, highly airtight and superinsulated, compared to conventional construction. Depending on the climate zone, houses built in Canada will need between three and seven times better insulation performance than that provided by current national and provincial building codes in order to achieve Passive House performance criteria. The designer must ensure complete insulation coverage for all parts of the building shell.

Required insulation levels to achieve this performance are determined by modeling the building using the PHPP software and relevant climate data. To ensure accuracy this should be done (or supervised) by an experienced Passive House designer. In most parts of Canada insulation levels of at least U = 0.12 W/m2K (i.e. R-50) are required throughout the building envelope, including floors.