There was a bit of a stir lately within the building science online communities when a well-known and respected building scientist published a review of the Passive House standard.

John Straube published a review of the Passive House standard on BuildingScience.com compared to standards and practices applicable in the U.S. and Canada, available at http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-025-the-passivhaus-passive-house-standard. In it Straube takes a close look at Passive House from a North American context, comparing it to other low-energy building systems for cold climates.

Katrin Klingenberg of Passive House Institute U.S. posted a lengthy response to John Straube’s article at http://www.passivehouse.us/bulletinBoard/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=208, correcting a few misunderstandings.

On GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, there is an initial discussion and reaction to Straube’s article at http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/community/forum/passive-house/14647/very-recent-passivhaus-article. Later, Marc Rosenbaum and David White wrote a point-by-point clarification of why the Passive House Standard sets a worthy goal for North America at http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/green-building-blog/defense-passive-house-standard

Also on GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, Martin Holladay and John Straube discuss the lowest cost approach, which differs from Passive House. The lowest cost approach improves the building envelope until the incremental cost of further improvements would be more expensive than photovoltaic technology. Passive House on the other hand looks at absolute energy consumption of the building envelope, so in a sense it is more “future-proof” than a house with more technology, and is likely the best choice for a future with constrained energy supply. Plus, it is much less expensive to add PV later than to retrofit additional underslab insulation. See http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/can-foam-insulation-be-too-thick

And finally, John Straube clarified his position in the whole discussion at http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-026-passivhaus-becomes-active-further-commentary-on-passivhaus.

If you are interested in helping bring Passive House to Canada, visit http://www.passivebuilding.ca and join the email discussion list.

The Ontario Building Code (2006) establishes its goals in Division A. It has overall objectives that the Code seeks to achieve and then functional statements relating to those objectives. Both the objectives and functional statements are inherently qualitative, meaning no numbers or other facts. This is an appropriate way to separate goals from the solutions to those goals.

In Division A Table 2.2.1.1, objective OR2 is “Resource Conservation – Energy Conservation”. It states:

An objective of this Code is to limit the probability that, as a result of the design or construction of a building, a natural resource will be exposed to an unacceptable risk of depletion or the capacity of the infrastructure supporting the use of the resource will be exposed to an unnatural risk of being exceeded, caused by the consumption of energy.

Then the related functional statement F131 in table 3.2.1.1 indicates that statements in the building code relating to resource conservation are designed “To limit excessive energy consumption“.

That’s interesting. The entire goal of the energy components of the building code boils down to resource depletion or the ability to produce and deliver the resource, and not to use it all up too quickly. But notice the lack of numbers.

Who defines what an unacceptable risk is? Well, Appendix A 1.2.1.1.1.(1)(b) comes along and says Division B with all of its prescriptive requirements forming the bulk of the Building Code that everyone talks about is considered to be boundaries between acceptable risk and unacceptable risk. That is, “the risk remaining once the acceptable solutions in Division B have been implemented represents the residual level of risk deemed to be acceptable by the broad base of Canadians who have taken part in the consensus process used to develop the Code.”

There we have it. The key to changing the building code is to somehow get into the consensus process. But how does it work?

Here is my understanding of the process. The Province of Ontario sets out in legislation in the Building Code Act the various powers that the regulations under the act will have. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing administers those regulations in the documents comprising the Ontario Building Code. It’s good to leave an act as general as possible because it’s hard to change an act, while regulations can be changed without having to pass through the legislature.

The Building Advisory Council is the vehicle by which the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing solicits strategic advice on policy, technical and administrative issues related to the Building Code Act and the Building Code regulations. The terms of reference of the council is available in a PDF document on the Ministry web site.

Those terms of reference spell out the organizations who may have a designate to be on the Building Advisory Council, although the Minister can appoint additional members at will. To find out who the current designates are, have a look at the most recent minutes, available at the Building Advisory Council’s index page on the Ministry web site.

Following the chain of command approach, as an engineer I would contact the designate for Professional Engineers Ontario, the designate from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, or the representative from the Consulting Engineers of Ontario. A contractor might contact the representative from the Ontario General Contractors Association, and/or the designate for the Council of Ontario Construction Associations.

Any individual can always make submissions directly to the Ministry or the Minister, without having to do through the Building Advisory Council. But having a recommendation endorsed by the committee is helpful.

However, the Building Advisory Council is only an advisory panel. The Ministry as a whole, and ultimately the Minister, can do what they please. They can take recommendations under advisement and then turn around at make a step in a different direction, for political or other reasons. I’m sure when the engineers had an issue with Building Code Act about jurisdiction between it and the Professional Engineers Act, their complaints were dutifully passed along through the Building Advisory Council to the Ministry, which were then dutifully ignored. Nothing was changed until PEO applied to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2006 and won in May 2007.

In conclusion, to reform the Building Code such that Division B significantly raises the bar on energy performance of buildings and in effect lowers the threshold for the acceptable risk of resource depletion, we need to work with the Building Advisory Council members, the Acting Director of the Buildings and Development Branch as well as other people from the Building and Development Branch who are present at the BAC meetings, the Minister, and finally the Premier of Ontario. It wouldn’t hurt to work with your local Member of Provincial Parliament too. And if all else fails and you think you have a case, go to court.

***
The Ontario Building Code (2006), as with as all provincial acts and regulations, is available for free in a Word document on e-Laws but the online version does not contain the contents of the Volume 2, such as the supplementary standards.

Sustainable building construction worker

An elegant new green home is nearing the final stages of construction in Burlington, Ontario. Barry Imber and Leslie Aske’s are aiming to have their home certified as part of the LEED Canada for Homes Case Study, and Barry has been blogging the experience at ImberAkseHouse.ca.

In Why sustainable building is upside down and may cost more, Barry highlights some problems with green construction that few designers are aware of. Namely, that building green requires a complex interplay of the trades that disrupts the way Things Have Always Been Done, including financing by the banks.

While green designers know about the up-front integrated design process, and may involve some of the trades early on, when it comes down to working with the crews the timing is off, multiple visits are required, and so costs rise.

This also brings to mind the importance once again of bringing builders into the room. And I mean physically. We need much greater representation of the men and women doing the work and managing the site to come out and be a part of the Canada Green Building Council, especially at the local chapter level.

Actually, to the credit of site professionals who do come out, many are often turned off by the design-centric focus where everyone in the room appears to be an architect, engineer, or interior designer, all without a speck of dirt under the nails.

Perhaps there’s something to be said for over 3000 LEED Accredited Professionals in Canada yet only 126 buildings have been certified as of November 24 2008.

In Prioritizing Green—It’s the Energy, Stupid Lstiburek blasts the designers and developers of green buildings who insist on using lots of glass (I’m looking at you, Tridel and Minto). Yes, natural light is a good thing. But let’s not go overboard.

It’s a great article complemented by the sidebar Mis-LEED-ing, where it’s shown that LEED buildings are not statistically different than typical buildings in terms of energy use.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has this to say:

The Ontario Government is apparently having a hard time getting nuclear companies to agree to take responsibility for cost overruns and delays on its proposed new nuclear projects.  That’s not surprising given that the nuclear industry has not been able to bring a project in on-time or on-budget in Ontario in 25 years.  But it is bad news for Ontario taxpayers and ratepayers, who are already on the hook for an $18 billion nuclear debt.  If the Ontario Government is serious about not repeating the mistakes of the past, it must pass a Nuclear Cost Responsibility Act that makes it illegal for nuclear power companies to pass their capital cost overruns onto electricity consumers or taxpayers.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has established a petition calling for a Nuclear Cost Responsibility Act. You can view the petition and sign your name at www.OntariosGreenFuture.ca

Dear USGBC Constituents:

In recent weeks, a wave of fear and pessimism propagated by the world financial crisis has stolen the headlines, gripped the nation, and challenged our movement. In conversation after conversation, people are asking what will happen to the green building movement if our community is plunged into a recession.

And I have an answer for them. The greed that led the world economy into crisis will not defeat our commitment to good work. Fear will not dominate our agenda. And our commitment to change – even in the face of so great a challenge – will not waver.

Change doesn’t wait on Washington. And it doesn’t depend on Wall Street. Change comes from within. The green building movement has been demonstrating that fact for more than 15 years. Before there was a single government green building policy, before the business community stood up and took notice, before there was a LEED – there was you. Thousands upon thousands of committed individuals dedicated to doing better by doing good. You’ve built this movement. You’re building sustainable communities. And every single one of us has a contribution to make towards pulling our country out of this crisis.

We cannot lose sight of our mission. It is within reach.

How? It’s time for the green building movement to deploy the expertise and capacity we’ve built in new construction to green what we’ve already got. Ninety-nine percent of achieving our mission is wrapped up in our existing homes and buildings. It will save money. It will save energy. It will help save our climate. And directly relevant to today’s economic environment, it will create good, green, local jobs. As just one example, USGBC estimates that a 100% commitment to greening existing commercial buildings alone would create more than 1.5 million new opportunities for employment for out of work Americans.

In four weeks, we will meet together at Greenbuild. And when you get to Boston, we will celebrate everything that your individual commitments have accomplished so far. We’ll enjoy the fellowship of more than 20,000 friends and colleagues who share our vision for a sustainable future. And we will keep moving forward, together. I’ll see you there.

With gratitude,

U.S. Green Building Council S. Rick Fedrizzi
CEO, President and Founding Chair,
USGBC

This is an important step towards recognizing the value of an energy-efficient house, which should be a part of every house listed for sale on MLS.