Jackson DigneyDirector, Enduro Builders · Passive House Builder | Director, Enduro Builders

Building Better Homes | The Importance of Insulation

16 Oct 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:39

In this segment, the speaker emphasizes that continuous thermal insulation—from slab to roof—is a foundational element of Passive House construction. He explains that even costly windows or extra insulation are ineffective if the insulation is installed with gaps or creases. Certified Passive Houses require photographic evidence of each wall’s insulation to verify proper installation. Although insulation is the lowest‑cost line item, it is the most critical and often mishandled by builders. To address this, Induro incorporates a "hold point" in its schedule, conducting a thorough inspection of all insulation before it is concealed behind plasterboard, ensuring flawless installation.

Chapters

One of the pillars of a Passive House, and also something that you should get right in every home you build, is thermal insulation. In your home, you want your insulation to be continuous the whole way from the slab all the way up the walls, over the roof, back down the other side. There's very little point spending a lot of money on expensive windows or extra insulation if it's installed poorly. So here you can see an example of really well-installed insulation. There's No gaps, no creases. A key part of certified Passive Houses is that we then have to take a photo of every single wall showing the insulation installed so that the institute can inspect those photos and be satisfied that every wall of the house did get the insulation that it was meant to get and that it's been installed without gaps and in particular creases. Amazingly, insulation is probably the lowest cost budget line in your entire project, and it's the most important thing and the easiest thing to get right, but lots and lots of builders don't get it right. So one of the ways that we combat this at Induro is we have what's called a hold point in our schedule where we do an inspection of all of the insulation install to make sure that everything is perfect before we cover it up with the plasterboard.