PHIUS+ 2018 Space Conditioning Criteria Mid-Cycle Evaluation

Through the end of September 2019, PHIUS certification staff had the discretion to grant an exception for one of the four main space conditioning target criteria, as outlined in PHIUS+ 2018 Passive Building Standard-Setting Documentation, page 6. This allowance gave teams with projects already in planning some assurance that their efforts would not be wasted if their designs could not be revised to meet the new targets. If a project was severely constrained on meeting a target, a “mulligan” could be granted based on majority vote from the certification staff. This also allowed flexibility in case the targets didn’t pan out in the real world even for clean-sheet designs. This “3 out of 4” provision has now come to an end, and a mid-cycle evaluation indicates a need for some adjustments to the heating/cooling criteria.