poseva

I don't know what can I say to make you feel better but I will pray for you to find a job and have strength to get over this... Sending hugs from Timișoara, Romania.

Can you please add more details? Thank you in advance!

Is this sarcasm ? because sounds like sarcasm. If Grok generating naked images of children is your ideea of free speech no wonder nobody takes a stand against Trump and Co., you somehow managed turn your common sense to dust...

If you think house prices are a joke now, just wait 2-3 years.

I'm actually a structural engineer with a passion for passive houses and went into programming 8 years ago. I designed and built a lot of houses and I know what you're talking about.. the house builders chase profits disregarding any laws.

IMHO the best thing is to buy a lot and build yourself the house, this way you are sure that you get what you want.

House prices per sqm in Romania based on average net earnings per month is lower than ever, lower than 2014 when price per sqm were at the lowest after the 2008 financial crisis.

Why don't you consider buying the house with a bank loan? it's the best decision to do so even if you have all the money... if you talk with a financial consultant you'll see why.

Housing prices are not out of control, we are lagging years behind other European countries in regard with house prices. If you look on the numbers you will see that this is actually a good time to buy a house in Romania.

Avocado does not grow “true-to-seed”. It will not work.

Just yesterday my father's Philips CPAP was replaced after more than a year of complaints to Philips Romania. Thanks to HN I read an article that said Philips put a lot of money aside for Respironics issues and this made me investigate further. If it wasn't for HN I wouldn't have found out and most probably Philips Romania would have ignored the issue, so thank you HN!

You need a separate hot water tank and a 3-way valve, when hot water is requested the hot water from heat-pump will get diverted into the hot water tank (puffer).

You're welcome! I live in Europe (Romania) and to be honest I would not know what to expect in terms of costs. You lose at least 25% of your energy trough the roof, this can even go up to 30-35% if the ceiling is cracked or air is able to circulate freely trough it.

I want to also to highlight the importance of the building airtightness (Air Changes per Hour) on the energy consumption needed for heating.

I saw an example at some point in one of PassivHaus presentation and it was like this:

0.3 ACH -> 1.74 kWh/m2year (for a 100 sqm house means, 174 kwh per year for heating)

0.6 ACH -> 3.49 kWh/m2year (PassivHaus limit)

1.0 ACH -> 5.81 kWh/m2year

1.5 ACH -> 8.72 kWh/m2year (Low energy house limit)

4.5 ACH -> 26.5 kWh/m2*year (typical house)

This is for the same house with the same insulation. Of course you cannot achieve this kind of airtightness without careful planning and using a lot of self-adhesive tape (SIGA, ROTHOBLASS and other manufactures that can guarantee its effectiveness up to 50 years)

Exactly what coryrc said in his comment, for a PassivHaus you recover very slowly the cost of the heatpump and if it brakes once in 10-15 years while it takes to recover the investition... you will never recover it.

I agree, you do not need concrete and brick but you also need to take into account the local traditions. For ex. building a wood house (framing or CLT) would have cost much more than concrete and bricks and was also much more prone to errors because of the builders lack of experience, at least in my area and country.

Recently in Romania it really took of building houses using CLT (cross-laminated-timber) but it costs so much more than a regular brick and mortar house that few people afford it.

When -15 outside and 20 degrees inside, my house requires 2000W to keep the balance. This kind of simulations are done using PHPP package from PassivHaus Institut.

L.E. What I wanted to point out, thermal mass can have a huge impact on the house energy footprint.. to give you an example, today and tomorrow will be sunny days and this will drive my interior temp to about 23-24 degrees, this heat will heat-up the masonry and slabs and then give me back the heat in the next days when there will be no sun.