Hello to the forum, my wife and I are going to be doing a new construction in 2017, hoping to meet passive standards. Was wondering if I could get some input on skylights. She'd really like some skylights in the house, not only for the light but to sort of bring in the "green" nature of the property, which has a lot of really big established trees. I was searching around on the forum and it seems that skylights have been a bit of a no-no if you want to be passive standards. However I noticed on the PI website that they now have some that they have officially certified as being passive standard, this one from Lamilux for example: https://foursevenfive.com/product/lamilux-fe/ they're not exactly cheap but I suppose you get what you pay for. does anyone have any experience with these skylights? Are we now at the point where we can confidently use them in passive houses?

Skylights are not very popular in energy efficient buildings as you discovered. Skylights tend to overheat buildings in Summer and tend to have high heat loss in Winter. Like all fenestration, even the best skylights have a much lower R-value than the worst code minimum walls. Skylights also require a large penetration in your ceiling/roof. I am a big fan of full hip roofs having minimal penetrations and also having a large overhang to provide effective passive solar cooling.

You might want consider having some higher walls and using Winter Passive Solar Fenestration. Winter Passive Solar Fenestration is accomplished by using reduced height fenestration (e.g., perhaps 2 feet in height) and locating this fenestration in the wall up near the ceiling. While Winter Passive Solar Fenestration does not allow low direct line of sight for building occupants, Winter Passive Solar Fenestration does allow high direct line of sight of terrain views and provides valuable daylighting. More importantly, Winter Passive Solar Fenestration may be designed so as to only provide the required heat gain during the desired winter months without providing any heat gain during the spring, summer, and fall months. We have information about passive solar and a suite of DIY passive solar design software on our website.

You might want consider having some higher walls and using Winter Passive Solar Fenestration. Winter Passive Solar Fenestration is accomplished by using reduced height fenestration (e.g., perhaps 2 feet in height) and locating this fenestration in the wall up near the ceiling. While Winter Passive Solar Fenestration does not allow low direct line of sight for building occupants, Winter Passive Solar Fenestration does allow high direct line of sight of terrain views and provides valuable daylighting.

Thanks for replying, I'm having a bit of a hard time imagining what this would look like---could you link me to some photos?

Here are a couple photos of a passive solar design in Bend OR. While this design is an architect’s delight and is much loved by the owners, it severely violates my personal preference of a simple and efficient design to minimize construction costs and maximize energy efficiency (e.g., too complicated a roof profile and too many corners and fenestration). However, it does make good use of Winter Passive Solar Fenestration. Some of the Winter Passive Solar Fenestration in the hallways beautifully highlight the local terrain features such as Three Sisters. In short, Winter Passive Solar Fenestration are simply low height vertically oriented windows that are located high on a wall and shaded by an overhang such that they only allow irradiance to directly enter the building during the Winter months.