jeffwTIL about “passive houses,” building that are airtight and require barely any energy to heat or cool
mindKitchens and bathrooms need proper ventilation.
Also, how do you maintain proper levels oxygen and carbon dioxide in an airtight house?
WhiteOakBayouHas to be some kind of air exchanger
Sounds more dangerous than it’s worth.
Considering the number of people who have lived safely like this for years, and that some places (Massachusetts, USA) require it for apartment buildings/multi family units, makes me think it’s pretty well understood
Airtight isn't really the best way to describe it. Rather it's controlled air exchange, this way instead of 1000 tiny leaks all over you have a central controlled means to exchange air.
Passive home typically have ERVs or HRVs (Energy/Heat Recovery Ventilators) to achieve this, they can control the heat/humidity in the air.
CarbonIceDragonReading through the article suggests that they aren’t completely airtight, rather that the air comes in and out through mostly only through specific paths, with some sort of system that exchanges the heat with air leaving the house, so that the heat (or lack of heat if keeping the building cold) does not leak out much when the air circulates through.
Here is a schematic I found on the Swedish version of this article: …wikimedia.org/…/Passive_House_scheme_1_multiling…
The WSJ article has a diagram explaining the air stuff