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Originally Posted by supafamous
I wouldn't call it the Tesla of homes since passive houses are usually well made....
I talked to the folks at Lanefab who do passive/low energy homes and to a friend of mine who had a passive house made. They cost a bit more to build (5-10% more assuming you're comparing a like to like quality builder) and are quieter homes due to how thick the walls have to be and are super energy efficient. Design styles can be more limiting as building for passive standards usually require a square box style home for the most part. My friend really likes his passive house - they compromised a bit with a vented dryer (hole in the wall) and I think they couldn't use gas inside the house - but otherwise it's worked out great for them.
It's very rare to find one for sale on the market - usually they are custom builds.
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want to add a bit on passive house
I did some research into this when looking to build an off-grid cabin.
It costs more if you want to have it certified as "Net-zero" or "Passive" houses as there are some specific requirements. Nevertheless, unless you are looking to achieve that feat specifically, you could totally build a passive/netzero house (or darn close to it) while saving some money by not certifying as such.
The concept is quite simple... instead of wasting money on energy to heat/cool the home, you just spend the money first to build it as airtight as possible. They are usually extremely well-insulated by working with the materials from the start. You'd see many built with ICF (insulated concrete foam) or something like that where you have R20+ to begin with (vs. wood frame where it's R0 until you start adding insulation) to create a home that needs very little energy to heat/cool.
Then they go with something like geothermal heat pumps, solar panels, batteries, and rainwater collection to absolutely minimize their need for any resource at all. Many of the off-grid cabins that I visited are more or less passive homes as they are self-sufficient. Some of them did opt to not have heat pumps to minimize building cost, and they would have high-efficiency wood-burning stoves instead as the heat source.