Membrane

A couple of years ago my nephew, working as a labourer, told me about a stupid build he was doing where the house was being lined in plastic. The workers been told not to staple it to the battens but what else were they supposed to do? So they were stapling it. I suggested he might be working on a passivhaus. He'd never heard of it but looked it up. Yes, he and his fellow workers were busy making it into a non-passivhaus by puncturing the airtightness. I was shocked that they hadn't been told why they'd been asked to do the job the way they had. 

At the site meeting yesterday I got to see the membrane that is being put in over the insulation to make my house airtight and draught-free. The architect told the site foreman that they needed to leave more of the membrane to run back onto the side walls than they had. I will need to make sure that that error is put right. (I was listening so carefully to what was being said that I didn't think to take a photo at the time - this later one is very grainy, taken with a long lens from outside through the stairwell into the darkness of the front bedroom.) Although my builders haven't previously built to passivhaus standards the site foreman in particular is very interested and always listens very carefully to what the architect says about insulation and airtightness. He says that when he builds himself a house it will be passivhaus. From what I've seen there are no staplers piecing what needs to be airtight.