Category: Research
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A Brief Note on Airtightness in Canadian Codes
On teaching a course for Passive House Canada for Building Officials last week and today, I was re-introduced to the numerous disparate adoptions of the NECB and NBC model National Codes by the provinces. I have never yet in my career (30yrs) seen such broad disparity. Ontario, my jurisdiction, is clinging hard to the actually…
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OBJECTIVE 4.012 ~ Now Available in BETA
OpenBuilding OBJECTIVE: A Free Early-Stage Energy Modelling Tool That Actually Works Canada wastes $44.6 billion annually** on building energy inefficiency—more per capita than any country on Earth. Despite decades of voluntary standards, expensive certifications, and complex modelling software, the performance gap between modelled and actual building energy use can vary by an incredibly wide margin. …
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Domestic and Service Hot Water Use (DHW, SHW)
Summary of Canadian Domestic Water Heating Research (Using kWh) Based on the 2005 CBEEDAC report “Domestic Water Heating and Water Heater Energy Consumption in Canada” (Aguilar et al., 2005), alongside recent findings from Abdeen et al. (2020, 2021), we have reviewed our OBJECTIVE framework’s domestic hot water (DHW) energy consumption model (values expressed in litres…
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TEUI G.4.1 Net Usable Gains
First of all, if you’re not sure what TEUI3 is, Take me to the Index of Articles! If there is one, single thing that differentiates Passive House Energy Modelling from most other methods, including Hourly, Dynamic modellers, it is probably what is called the Net Usable Gains Calculation. Just semantically, think of a building as…
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TEUI L.2 Heating and Cooling Degree Days
If you’re not sure what OBJECTIVE or TEUI3 is, Take me to the Index of Articles! Heating and Cooling Days (HDD and CDD, respectively) are an effective shorthand for defining climate-related impacts on heating and cooling loads of buildings. The idea is simple enough, but the units – a mashup of time and temperature –…
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TEUI T.3 Target vs. Actual
First of all, if you’re not sure what TEUI3 is, Take me to the Index of Articles! Architects imagine buildings in great detail before they exist. They establish budgets for construction costs, and their contracts will often hold them to delivering projects within a certain percentage of these targets. The buildings are expected to perform…