An Ottawa Family Builds, and Gets Ready to Leave, a Passivhaus

So, why should home buyers be interested in The Wander House, which the couple shares with their two daughters? "Let me count the ways!" Rosen exclaims. The home is built on an infill lot in the highly desirable Hintonburg neighborhood. "It's the third house we've lived in on the same block for last 12 years," Rosen says. The home was designed and constructed to the rigorous international Passivhaus standard.

Built with super-insulated walls, ceilings, and floors, the modern single-family home is air-tight and requires about 85% less energy for heating than a typical new home. The home also has a shallow geothermal ground loop, greywater-ready plumbing system, high-efficiency ventilation system, and heat pump hot water tank.

Why Did The Rosens Build the Wander House Passivhaus?

When the couple bought the lot back in 2014, they were ready to build to Passivhaus standards. As a Passivhaus consultant, Rosen says, "I knew the international standard is the most rigorous for all the right reasons, including building with concerns about the planet and working with elements of construction that result in a healthy home. We decided we'd go all out and build a proof of concept."

The Ottawa climate, with its temperature extremes, not to mention an urban lot where site orientation is complex, posed significant challenges. "Still, if Passivhaus is the gold standard, we decided to walk the talk and show we could do it."

Initially, the Rosens considered using an off-site panelized prefab system. "The challenges of building during a Canadian winter are real," Rosen says. "The less time you have people working outside, the better." But the building partner wasn't ready, and the Rosens went with site-built instead.

In addition to an ERV (energy recovery ventilator), the home has a shallow geothermal loop that preconditions ERV air and allows the ERV to run continuously without a defrost cycle. The system provides a constant supply of fresh-filtered air to the home. The Rosens have a greywater-ready plumbing system. In the future, a homeowner could easily reconfigure the system to allow water used from showers and baths to be reused to flush toilets, for example.

To learn even more about home, check out this podcast with the Conscious Builder.

What Luxuries Does Sustainable Design Bring to The Wander House Passivhaus?

The home's thick, super-insulated walls provide the family with space for built-in window benches and countertops. The family chose hardwood and ceramic tile floors throughout the house.

Choosing Passivhaus appliances meant balancing out cost, performance, reliability, aesthetics, and noise levels. By Astro Design Centre, the kitchen includes a Bosch dishwasher, which is quiet enough for the open-plan first level, a Bosch induction cooktop, and a Whirlpool convection oven. For ventilation, the Rosens selected a downdraft ventilator with a recirculating kit that sits in the island along with the cooktop. They also chose a ventless dryer that uses heat-pump technology, as well as a heat pump domestic hot-water tank.

She adds that homeowners shouldn't have to sacrifice anything to live in a Passivhaus. "For [Passivhaus] to become more mainstream, we hope people will come to see that all the aspects of the Passive House are actually what makes it 100 percent livable."