When better building performance seems obvious to you, remember that this clarity is not universal.
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a story that quite literally made my jaw drop.
I’ve seen a lot of strange things in the building industry, most of them in residential construction, but this story stood out because it flies in the face of the skill and experience that successful building projects require from concept to completion. There are countless stages that depend on capable teams, clear communication, and solid QA/QC processes. Building is not easy. Nor is it cheap.
Building Is Hard – Even Before Performance Considerations
Added to that are the many considerations to achieve successful construction: permits, specification reviews, zoning restrictions, NIMBYism (which is very real), financing, insurance, worker safety programs, and more. Countless checks and balances. Seas of red tape. Data silos. Deadlines. And extraordinarily tight margins.
Building is a high-risk, low-margin business at the best of times.
This is the environment that so many in the Passive House community willingly step into, and often help push further, when striving to improve building performance. Whether building new or retrofitting existing structures, the work of building better is complex at the best of times.
So, it’s easy for those of us in the high-performance building space to wonder: why isn’t everyone building to the Passive House standard?
The reality is that many stakeholder groups, from designers and architects to engineers and tradespeople, are still grappling with what might be called the “easy hard stuff.” The foundational challenges of delivering projects consistently and efficiently. The parameters that many in the high-performance building world have already solved, or assume have been solved, are often still very much in play.
Wait… Two Extra Storeys?
Which brings me back to the story that made my jaw drop:
A project in Halifax was somehow built with two extra storeys.
Seriously.
Now, I know media stories don’t always capture every detail, and there is undoubtedly more to the situation than what’s reported. But on the surface, it’s mind-boggling. How many things, at how many different stages, would have to go wrong, be missed, or not questioned for two storeys to be fully built by “accident”?
And beyond the confusion, consider the implications: the cost, the liability, and the potential waste involved in correcting the error, possibly even tearing down those two additional floors.
It raises questions about priorities in a system already trying to balance affordability, administrative requirements, worker safety, and community needs. Against that backdrop, where does sustainable building performance rank?
If you think this is a one-time event, think again. This follow-up article suggests something similar happened in Halifax in the 1990s.
And it would be naïve to assume situations like this never occur elsewhere across the country.
Why This Matters for High-Performance Building
So, when better building performance seems obvious to you – when the QA/QC benefits are clear, the community benefits are evident, and the return on investment appears self-evident – remember that this clarity is not universal.
Too many people across every stakeholder group in the building industry still don’t fully understand what improved building performance can deliver, starting with improved building process performance.
Passive House may feel self-evident to you. But please never stop talking about it. Never stop asking questions. Never stop engaging others across the industry.
Because better buildings don’t happen by accident. They happen through clarity. Through discipline. Through communication. And through accountability. The Passive House approach brings all four.
So, keep pushing the conversation forward. Keep demonstrating what better looks like. And keep challenging the status quo.
Because every project that gets it right moves the entire industry forward.
