Out of ~ 50 home booths: ~ 5 were devoted to Passiv Haus construction+consulting, ~ 5 were devoted to windows, ~ 15 'biomass generators' , 1 oil-fuel furnace, ~ 3 awning booths, and ~ 6 geothermal/heatpump booths. Ok so that doesn't add up to 50... hey who said I was counting? :-)
The 'biomass generator' booths were interesting to me. They were all wood pellets furnace vendors. They had large crowds around them - especially the one that took a tree direct from the forest cranked it through chipper and through a cork screw arrangement into the fire box. The 'secret' for all these units were in the tightly designed and computer controlled fire box. I again saw the no-exhaust stack complete combustion units that just emit CO2! Where can I buy one in the USA?? I asked (in german) one of the sales people there that if he is successful at putting one of his unit inside every Austrian house, how long will the forests last? He looked at me stupified and said 'that's a dumb question - what does that have to do with anything?'.
Later, while I was talking with a fellow semi-retired engineer at a Passiv Haus consulting booth, one of the curious people browsing around was asked if they knew about 'passiv homes' and they kinda shrugged off the question and said 'well, of course!' . In asking the engineer about all the wood pellet and 'biomass generators' around, he said that they also have a lot to learn in Austria that envelope design comes first, and that the salesperson's comment represents how much further they have yet to go.
The window vendors' framing details are much more 'embedded' than we have thereby providing less leakage and more insulation value. There were several triple glazing configurations with varying separation depths - curious. One of my students showed me the link that verified my suspicions that the embodied energy in these triple glazing isn't worth the added performance value of around 20% in the overall LCA of these things.
Overall, I enjoyed the show, picked up several building catalogs, made several cool contacts ... and in the 'small world department' discovered one of the professors at the university where I teach was doing local energy assessments for communities - as in simulation modeling. I met with him 2 days later and we will be doing some work together... hopefully I can get him to come to the US and help assess and pilot some communities' energy commons project.... stay tuned.
Oh yeah... did i mention the ~3 insulation specialists booths? That's probably the big difference between comparative home shows. These booths had a whole array of fascinating materials of various thicknesses and purposes. When I asked if they had any 'sustainable, non-oil based, eco-friendly, low-embodied energy' insulation, they didn't hesitate and pointed to the various lines of expanded cellulose (wood chips) insulation.
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Here's the best practice for a residential house, that I have found so far:
A plus-energy-passive-prefabricated-house from the C2C network run by one of my friends here: Dr. Michael Braungart.
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