Passivhaus

We can help you by designing you a PassivHaus and or provide consultancy to help you and the design team to design, calculate and build your Passive House.
Passive Houses are:

• Designed to have a heating load of less than 15 kWh/m²yr. (The UK average is around 180 kWh/m²yr.)
• Houses with south facing windows providing more heat than they loose.
• Airtight (less than 1 air changes per hour)
• Have a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery unit, that extracts heat from exhaust air to heat the fresh input air
• Well insulated – triple glazing (u<0.8), fabric U<0.15
• Have good detailing and are thermal bridge free
• Have good summer shading and ventilation
• Proven Examples throughout Europe

The level of 15 kWh/m²yr is fixed at the point when the house can be heated using the low level ventilation system and so the cost of expensive heating systems is not required.

The PassivHaus concept has been developed to optimise value for money, as the graph to the side shows as you increase insulation and air tightness to reduce heat loss, the cost goes up until at 15 kWh/m2yr the need for a conventional heating system is removed and the cost goes down again. At this point it is the most economical capital cost to fuel cost point, as you will always need to install a heating system of some sort for when you come home from a fortnight skiing.

For further information about Passive House or for PHPP calculations please call.

View the recently completed Denby Dale PassiveHaus by the green building store:

and another recent PassivHaus in the States: