Passive House is an advanced, cost effective system for designing and constructing very low energy buildings. Starting from pioneering work on superinsulated structures that took place in North America in the 1970's and 80's, Passive House was developed in Europe with the first Passive House residence built in Germany in 1990. Since then more than 15,500 Passive House units have been completed across Europe and worldwide. Originally adopted by home builders, the standards, tools, and strategies which comprise Passive House have become mainstream at very large scales in Europe with examples including apartment buildings, schools, skyscrapers, and factories.

Passive House focuses first on minimizing heat loss by optimizing the thermal performance of building envelope components, paying careful attention to insulation, airtightness, and providing high efficiency heat exchange ventilation. The next priority is taking advantage of available passive heat sources, primarily solar, but also heat provided by appliances, lighting, hot water, and building occupants. Building form, siting, and orientation are additional considerations. Overheating is usually avoided through shading and passive ventilation.

Together Passive House strategies combine to create buildings with annual heating energy requirements designed to be not more than 15 kilowatt hours per square meter each year. This represents an approximate 85% reduction in heating energy requirements relative to the 2003 Model Energy Code. A typical 1,500 square foot home, built to Passive House standards, could be heated by the energy it takes to operate a hair dryer. Reduced mechanical system costs, in concer t with very low operating costs, help offset any investment in added insulation, air sealing, better windows, or other upgrades to the building envelope. 

The significant energy savings achieved by adopting Passive House strategies and standards, coupled with the already surprising growth in their acceptance and implementation in other parts of the world, hold significant promise and opportunity for reducing energy use and carbon emissions in the Pacific Northwest and the United States in general.