When you buy a car or a fridge you can look up all the details about the efficiency and houses need to be similar. If every house rented or sold were to require an efficiency rating the market would work a bit better. There are passive house tests with air pressure measurements that can already do this. It would be obvious if it makes _economic_ sense to pay extra for passive. If it doesn't make _environmental_ sense then the energy is not being priced high enough to reflect the environmental costs.
The construction industry is very learn-resistant so standards would bring the price down with higher volumes as with seatbelts and airbags.
Where I live in New Zealand the regulations are actually protecting the construction industry building poorly performing houses with junk materials. People want to build passive but it's difficult because there are barriers to entry for companies wanting to sell components like European style windows.
The construction industry is very learn-resistant so standards would bring the price down with higher volumes as with seatbelts and airbags.
Where I live in New Zealand the regulations are actually protecting the construction industry building poorly performing houses with junk materials. People want to build passive but it's difficult because there are barriers to entry for companies wanting to sell components like European style windows.