correctalex

That's the thing - PH doesn't prescribe anything of what you've described. We don't really want to sound like a bunch of smartasses, but it does feel like there's misconceptions here about what Passivhaus certification actually entails. Everything you mentioned is just plain bad design, Passivhaus certification or not. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure many "accredited" Passivhaus designers/architects make exactly these nonsensical choices in the name of making it easier for themselves, but that in no way means it's a requirement, or even desirable. Passivhaus certification doesn't require specific products for absolutely anything. It's easier to get certification with certain certified products, but you can equally get there without. That's simply a bad design choice. As I had mentioned, we took the exact opposite approach, and optimized for daylight & views first. None of that has made meeting Passivhaus targets meaningfully more difficult. Well, 36 days a year above 25 degrees is the absolute maximum Passivhaus certification allows, and it strongly discourages you from getting anywhere near that limit. PHPP & official guidance in fact encourage you to consider how e.g. climate change, not opening windows, etc, affect overheating, and to stay well away from that limit even under various "stress tests". It's a limit, and not a target.

Hi folks! Gema's other half here! Thanks for the warm welcome. RE PH certification - it's a relatively minor incremental cost given everything else (especially since we are doing all the design work - so it's really just the certifier cost), and we feel it's actually pretty good value for money, given the extremely detailed review and guidance that comes with it. As for the architecting, it's been a steep learning curve, but well worth it. We found trying to iterate over the design with an architect more tedious than helpful, but maybe that's because we are the ultimate control freaks. Let's just say the architect wasn't loving it when we rocked up with full daylight simulations (using Rhino + Ladybug Tools) and resizing & relocating all his windows, for example. Never mind asking for some up-front PHPP modelling and being told to wait, as that'll come during "detailed design". I'm sure there are plenty of good architects out there, but certainly not the one(s) we found. On the [visual] design side is probably where an architect would have been most useful as we aren't normally the creative types. However, we found our mojo and have concocted something we genuinely like (and is simple-ish to build).