Sound in a Passive House

Your questions answered

On our YouTube channel we answered this question on sound in a passive home:

You hear that the house is quieter from outside noise but what about inside? It seems to me that you would have less privacy because you have a ventilation pipe traveling through the whole house. So even side by side rooms I wonder would you be able to hear in the next room, or in my case, I would want to put a home theater in (and I know I would have to sound proof that room) but would that be a waste if the sound travels through the ventilation.

Thank you for your comment about noise/sound because honestly this is a very important part of a passive home but not known by many.

Most people that know of passive house simply recognize it as an ultra low energy type of home, but it actually has many more benefits – “quiet” being one of them.

You are correct the ventilation system has pipes going to every room, but the pipes are all dedicated, meaning they are individual runs from the “fresh air machine” to the individual rooms so there is virtually zero sound transmission anywhere.

The house basically has one inlet for fresh air and one exit for stale air, and during normal operation the machine is so quiet you literally have to put your ear on the machine to hear it working. The same goes for the rest of the home.

Thanks for your thoughts which help us to deepen our communications about the passive house standard.