The Passive House building standard is a rigorous, voluntary standard for high performance buildings. One of the benefits of meeting this standard is reducing the ecological footprint of buildings. It also results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little demand for space heating or cooling.
BC Building Science is a member of Passive House Canada, and we have in-house Passive House Consultants who provide individual, standalone services to supplement certification of a building and lead the certification process from energy modelling to commissioning to submitting documentation to Passive House Canada / US.
Since the Lower Mainland experiences moderate temperatures / climate, the area is a great place to implement the Passive House standard. In fact, BC Building Science had the privilege of applying the Passive House standard to the first non-residential passive house in Canada –The Okanagan Daycare Centre in Penticton.
As British Columbia adopts the Energy Step Code and increases performance requirements, we expect building performance to head towards the Passive House requirements. We also expect the construction industry to build in such a way that high-performing buildings become the standard, rather than the exception, eventually making the Passive House standard more commonplace in terms of performance.
