How I slept my way across New Zealand and Australia in Passivhaus bedrooms

Passivhaus people: build a better bedroom, and the world will beat a path to your door.

ANMF House, Melbourne

Bucky Fuller noted:

“Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time. Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time. Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time. It’s time we gave this some thought.”

By Bucky’s standard, our bedroom is the most important room in our house, used fully one-third of the time. And even though we are asleep for much of the time we are in the bedroom, the main function of the bedroom is to make that sleep as easy and as deep as possible. It’s time we gave that some thought.

Damien’s guest room

I certainly did when I was recently in New Zealand and Melboune, Australia. After speaking in Wellington I was invited to visit the South Island and stay in three different Passivhaus projects, starting with Damien McGill’s house in Christchurch. I approached his guest room with some trepidation, noting the giant animal head mounted on the wall over the bed. He claims he didn’t shoot them; someone he knew had to get rid of them so he offered them a new home. I get that for puppies, but I am not so sure about taxidermy. Fortunately the bed was huge, and I could stick close to the edge far away from the biggest animal that might have frightened me in the middle of the night if I woke up.

But I didn’t wake up, because a bedroom in a Passivhaus is incredibly quiet. The heat recovery ventilator is providing a constant flow of fresh air, so you don’t notice any buildup of Carbon Dioxide, or any horse’s heads on the wall above you.

My room is behind the door to the right

I then moved on to Dunedin and stayed in the guest room of the Toiora Cohousing project designed by Tim Ross. I do not have a photo of the interior, but it is located in the common house, a refurbished building from the previous school on the site. It was COLD; the outside temperature was about 6°C, (43°F) and there was no heat, other than a plug-in heater and an electric blanket.

The problem in this bedroom came in the morning; I slept so well, and woke up so cozy and comfortable that I just didn’t want to get out of bed, and kept hitting the snooze button. Eventually I had to get up to run to the cold bathroom, which fortunately had a powerful electric heater that warmed the room in a minute.

What makes Passivhaus bedrooms so wonderful? It’s not just the quiet; It’s also the CO2. A Chinese study found that with two people in a bedroom, the CO2 levels can easily reach 1200 ppm. “The results show that as the CO₂ concentration level increased, the sleep quietness and satisfaction of the subjects gradually decreased, the sleep duration gradually decreased, and symptoms such as throat discomfort, dyspnea, dry and itchy skin, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty waking up, congested nose and bad air smell become more obvious.” A British study found levels of 1520 ppm in bedrooms with windows closed.

A Passivhaus bedroom is never getting recirculated air as you do in a traditional forced-air mechanical system or in an old hydronic radiator system as I have at home- you get fresh outside air, filtered and warmed in the heat or energy recovery ventilator. Most have opening windows, but I didn’t bother; I wanted to revel in the silence.

Then it was off to Wanaka in ski country, saying in Jessica Eyers’ marvelous Hiberna strawbale house, the first in New Zealand to be certified to the Passivhaus standard. Again, two glorious nights sleeping in a room that was completely silent, that smelled wonderful.

The smell might be due to the natural materials and plaster finishes. One often hears that Passivhaus designs are high in embodied carbon because of all the high-tech plastic membranes needed to make it airtight; Jessica and Ben demonstrated here that they can achieve it with plaster alone. According to Sustainable Engineering,

Jessica’s research revealed a few other certified Passive Houses made from straw bales around the world but these used a membrane to create the building envelope. Other projects she’s aware of tried to use the plaster but narrowly missed the target (a maximum 0.6 air changes per hour (ACH_n50). Plaster is on the one hand, pleasingly simple. “It gives you the opportunity to have a second crack; if you find a spot that is a bit thin, you can apply more plaster,” says Jessica.

The southern sky from Wanaka, with the surprisingly teensy Southern Cross down at the bottom, I imagined it would be much bigger.

It in fact took a third crack, but they squeaked through. So I got to sleep in Passivhaus bedroom made from completely natural materials, in the country under the most marvelous southern sky.

Then it was off to Melbourne, with a night at the Airport Holiday Inn, which has marketing materials describing the quality of their beds and linens, but which can’t rescue a tired old hotel with smelly carpets. Here, I wanted an opening window, though I probably would have been overwhelmed with jet exhaust and noise.

I left the next morning and checked in to ANMF House, designed by Bayley Ward as short-term accommodation for members of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, (my host is married to a nurse and had access) but I am told that it is open to outsiders if rooms are available.

It won awards from the Australian Institute of Architects for its “holistic approach to sustainability through economic whole-of-life considerations. ANMF House demonstrates how sustainability can be integrated throughout a project without abrupt cultural change through considered design, streamlined construction and comfortable operation.”

It hits all of my buttons, including historic preservation of the Central Club Hotel below, Cross-Laminated Timber construction above, and Passivhaus accreditation.

The view through my window

It hits all of my hotel buttons too, with a good workspace, great interior design, more lighting options than I have ever seen in a hotel, enough electric outlets to actually plug everything in, a killer view through the massive floor-to-ceiling window, and a fabulously comfortable bed. Put this all together and you get the best night’s sleep of any hotel I have ever been in.

In total, I had eight nights in four different Passivhaus bedrooms, all of which provided glorious night’s sleep. As engineer Robert Bean says, we don’t get comfort from a thermostat and a furnace, but from a “condition of mind.” Yes, the mattress and linens are important, but noise and air quality matter just as much, and falling asleep is very much a condition of mind.

Mattress companies have been promising better rest for decades. I remember the mattress wars of a few years ago when every bus and subway ad was for some mattress in a box that was going to make you sleep better. Hotel chains have spent millions on marketing their beds and linens as being comfortable. But a mattress alone doesn’t deliver better rest or make a better spouse.

I keep banging on about how we should be pushing Passivhaus as a standard of comfort, but have never focused on the bedroom, and wonder if we should be making a bigger deal about this, stressing how Passivhaus delivers comfort, all night long. As Bucky noted, we spend a third of our lives in our bedrooms; why not make the experience the best it can be?

Or to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson writing about mousetraps in 1855: Build a better bedroom, and the world will beat a path to your door.

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I have been writing about Passivhaus for close to twenty years, but cannot remember previously sleeping in one. I wonder how many people have actually tried it, and if they found it as satisfying as I did?