2017 SeaBEC Symposium: Passive House and Commercial Construction

Medgar Marceau, Senior Building Science Engineer, will be presenting on Passive House standards, common in residential construction, and how they can be applied to commercial projects at the 2017 SeaBEC Symposium.

Course Overview:

The accelerating growth of Passive House across the US and Canada is leading a change in the building envelope industry across the Pacific Northwest. With Vancouver’s new mandate to meet the Passive House standard for all city-owned commercial buildings, and Seattle’s progressively stricter energy codes, it’s only natural that our industry will have new challenges to meet on the pathway of sustainability.

There is a large knowledge base of how to build durable residential buildings that meet the Passive House standard. However there are few examples of commercial buildings meeting Passive House. This presentation will help bridge the knowledge gap between residential and commercial construction. Basic principles of Passive House are high levels of insulation, no thermal bridging, an airtight building, very high-performance windows and doors, heat and moisture recovery ventilation, and optimizing solar heat gains. All of this while ensuring occupant comfort and durability are paramount. Achieving these objectives in Passive Commercial will require the same.

This presentation will discuss:

• Acknowledging the challenges in translating Passive House to Passive Commercial
• Solutions for minimizing thermal bridging in commercial construction
• Solutions for an air-tight interior vapor retarder
• Thermally efficient at-grade and below-grade transitions
• Using 2-D and 3-D simulation tools to evaluate hygrothermal performance