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Types of Energy Efficient Houses

Worldwide, buildings sector use more than 50% of electric energy production...
How could we build more energy efficient homes and reduce energy wastes and stop global warming?

What are energy efficient buildings?

There are many concepts – largely convergent – of energy efficient houses. Concepts as Zero Energy Houses, Super-insulated Houses and Passive Solar Houses underline the same basic principles of efficiency. The concept of energy efficient house comprises some specific categories of buildings: the Straw Bale Homes or the Earth-sheltered houses...

The Whole Approach on Advanced Energy Efficient Buildings

More important than the concepts of advanced energy houses – Zero Energy Home, Super-Insulated House, Passive Houses - is the perspective of an energy efficient design facing the building elements as a whole in order to save energy and reduce or nullify environmental negative impacts.

The approach should allow major savings in energy for space heating and cooling, water heating, and lighting, and for that it should equate in an integrated way a wide set of elements: the orientation of the house relatively to the sun, the layout of the rooms, shading strategies, advanced windows, appropriate insulation, ventilation and draught proofing, appropriate building materials, efficient appliances and, of course, renewable sources of energy.

Contrarily to traditional approaches all these elements should be equated in an interrelated view, in order to obtain an highly energy efficient building.

Obviously, this approach is more feasible in new constructions. When remodeling, it may be impossible to equate all the elements, and the energetic performance of the house could be limited (which doesn’t mean that some times, with just some elements - good insulation and solar energy, for instance – the remodeling results couldn’t be surprisingly good).

What is a Zero Energy House

A Zero Energy House is a building with a net energy consumption of zero over a year: the energy provided by its renewable energy sources is equal to the used energy. Zero energy buildings are a radical solution to issues as carbon emissions and high fuel energy costs.

Zero energy buildings are designed to make use of renewable energies and to obtain energy gains in water washings, baths, lighting, and even body heat. These buildings may be optimized to use passive solar energy, temperature variations over the day, thermal gains in walls and roofs, and most of the times involve super-insulating.

A Zero Energy House allows a nearly zero operative energy costs.

What is a Super-Insulated House

Super-insulated buildings are intended to be heated predominantly by their own intrinsic sources, namely the waste heat of appliances and the body heat of the houses’ occupants. These may be attained through a very thick insulation of walls, roofs, foundations and their meetings.

Super-insulated houses are a variant of the passive house and zero energy buildings solutions.

What is a Passive House?

Passive Houses means, loosely, an approach involving friendly environment buildings with low energy costs.

In a more strict mean, Passive Houses are ultra-low energy buildings inspired by the German Passivhaus standards. These buildings are able to dispense with conventional heating systems. Passive Houses buildings may include a low-volume heat recovery ventilation to maintain air quality, but no more extra energy sources. Their capacity to dispense extra energy comes from the thickness of wall insulation and the materials (including advanced windows) used in them. In the Passivhaus approach all thermal bridges should be eliminated.

Passive Solar Home

A Passive solar Home is a building that take advantage of climatic conditions - especially the sun - for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. It's a home that uses Passive Solar Techniques and involves a well shaped and oriented building (relatively to the sun) that use properly shading strategies, advanced windows, right insulation, ventilation and draught proofing, etc.

Straw bale home

A straw bale home uses straw bales in its structures and namely in its walls, which provide highly insulated patterns.

Earth-sheltered Homes

Earth-sheltered homes are very specific traditional homes partially or totally underground. Because earth covers part or all of their exterior, these homes are less susceptible to outdoor extreme temperatures and weather conditions and allows a more energy-friendly approach.

See also:
Energy Efficient House Basics