ᐅ Passive House as a Logical Choice? Are There Any Counterarguments?

Hello everyone,

we are a family planning to build a house. So we have tried to gather as much information as possible. In the process, we have come across the passive house concept.

Do you know that feeling when you think you understand something and then wonder why everyone isn’t doing it that way? That’s exactly how we feel about the passive house right now. Are we missing something, or are there any arguments against building a passive house? I really can’t think of any.

Of course, it is somewhat more expensive, but if I recover the costs soon and then save money for life, I don’t understand, for example, why I would build a KfW 70 house instead...

So please either correct me or agree with me, but my conviction about the passive house feels a bit unsettling.

Thanks for your thoughts.

It costs more money (disproportionately). It is technically demanding and must be professionally planned. Not everyone can do it (therefore: it costs more money). I believe living in a passive house also has to follow certain rules (no ventilation in winter, paying attention to open exterior doors) – or at least that is a common opinion – and that certainly bothers many people as well.

Well, you can expect about a 2% increase in costs, so it’s not that bad.

I quickly found additional costs of 7%, 9%, and over 30% (pure construction costs – no business case). So it probably depends a lot on who you ask.

If it were really that expensive, hardly anyone would be able to build in Freiburg, right?
And the idea of special regulations is exaggerated too. You just need to behave sensibly and avoid wasting energy, but that applies to other houses as well.

2% higher construction costs? I don’t buy that. My gut feeling is that the extra costs compared to KfW 70 would be around 10-20%. For building costs of EUR 300,000, that means EUR 30,000–60,000 in additional expenses. You first have to save that much energy. Over a 30-year lifespan, that’s about EUR 1,000–2,000 per year. For EUR 1,000, you can almost heat a normally sized KfW 70 house annually. Passive house standards don’t mean that no energy is needed for heating or hot water. It’s more something for the green conscience (and the well-filled wallet).