Construyendo la casa de nuestros sueños basada en el estándar Passivhaus
We are a little behind on updating you all on how our house behaved in what should be one of the coldest months in Chile. But in the meantime we finally got around to writing about the economic aspect of our project (see post here). In July we experienced similar trends in terms of temperatures… Continue reading Enjoying July
We have been writing this blog for just over a year now, and finally we are at a point where we feel comfortable talking about the economics of our project. We have been analysing the numbers responsibly in order to give an accurate picture of just how much building intelligently to achieve an energy efficient… Continue reading Does building intelligently mean we are “rolling in money”?
Today, a year ago we left Santiago and started our life in Maria Pinto. For the first 6 months we were fortunate enough to rent a small house in another sector of the valley about 10km from our property. Cecilia, the owner, soon became a very close friend, and it was so helpful to be… Continue reading Our cosy house in the first month of winter
Since we began to dream about and design our energy efficient home a few years ago, we started to monitor the temperatures we experienced in our apartment/house and so I have become very accustomed to having thermometers dotted around the house. This was a great way to start understanding the concept of comfort…what is the… Continue reading How is our house “behaving”?
So many friends and family around the world have followed us via this blog and supported us on this crazy journey to build our passivhaus inspired home. And many of you have been asking for a peak inside the “finished” house to see how it looks. So even though there are still little details that… Continue reading A peak inside
Now is an appropriate time to write about the heating and cooling of our “passivhaus-inspired” home. We are a few weeks into autumn and the night-time temperature has dropped dramatically in Maria Pinto, to between 4 and 6 degrees, although the day-time high is still in the low to mid twenties. Yet despite the drop… Continue reading Winter’s coming – heating our new home
Rodrigo and I were rather naïve at the start of our building project…we were going to make designated, clearly marked areas for each type of waste or building rubble and were going to make sure that the builders separated waste as they went along. To some of you reading this post, the situation I just… Continue reading Building rubble – a headache no matter the size of your project
“In the southern hemisphere, houses should be oriented to the north” I first learnt this concept way back in high school geography classes, but never thought that I would ever get to apply it to the construction of my own house. And obviously, with so much more understanding of why this is so important. So… Continue reading The Aspect Effect: using the sun’s energy intelligently
As mentioned in the previous posts, airtightness is a key factor in the passivhaus standard and the Chilean CEV Standard. This refers to the uncontrolled flow of air through unwanted “openings” (gaps) in the building envelope. This leakage has an important impact on the energy performance of the house. The concept used to measure airtightness… Continue reading Sealing the house (part 3): The long awaited Blower Door Test
As mentioned in part 1, making sure a house is as airtight as possible is crucial for energy efficiency. Most of the gaps that produce air infiltrations are so tiny that they may not even be visible to the naked eye, and even those that can be seen are usually hidden by the finishings of… Continue reading Sealing the house (part 2)
