environmentally friendly Passive Homes
For those looking for something a little different with huge environmental impact, you might consider to construct a Passive Home.
Architect Nabih Tahan has lived and worked in the USA, Austria and Ireland so that he may learn more about the various environmental influences on housing in different climates and transform that information into an alternative residential climate system for an eco-friendly home.
What is a Passive Home?
According to Nabih Tahan the term "Passive House, refers to a design and construction standard that aims to drastically reduce heating requirements in homes so that conventional heating systems are no longer necessary. The homes maintain constant temperatures and do not rely on fossil fuels to continually heat and cool, therefore passive."
The idea of a passive house is to reuse the heat that is already produced within the home from lighting, computers, appliances etc. This heat since it is being reused is considered to be "free" heat.
It is imperative for these passive homes to be extremely well insulated as "free" heat must be prevented from escaping in order for this process to work properly.
The energy consumption for homes that use this system is greatly reduced! These homes need to be designed specifically for the climate in which you reside and can be further improved with geothermal heating ventilation systems.
For more information about Passive Homes, how they work and how you can turn your home into a Passive Home visit Nabih Tahan's web site.
The Opinion
Many homes in Europe have chosen to operate as Passive Homes, dramatically improving their personal energy consumption as well as reducing the demand for energy in their home countries.
The idea of eliminating home heating systems altogether is an environmental dream which can be realized with residential systems such as Passive Home design. We can only hope that more green-minded people will learn of this process and push others to consider the green design change as well.
