PassivHaus or Passive House Architects & Designers
PassivHaus (or passive house) is the fastest growing energy performance standard in the world, consequently with over 30,000 buildings constructed to date.
As an approach the PassivHaus scheme requires the building of a house that has an excellent thermal performance. In addition it also requires exceptional air tightness with mechanical ventilation. This approach aims to minimise the heating requirements. Consequently to the point of only sometimes specifying a towel rail as a means of conventional heating.
A Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery (MVHR) unit recovers and circulates heat.
PassivHaus (Passive House) Origins
Germany developed the Passive house standard in the early 1990’s.In its design, it is to be used for commercial, industrial and public buildings as well as by residential dwellings.
The development of the standard led to the following functional definition:
“A Passivhaus (Passive House) is a building, for which thermal comfort can be achieved solely by post-heating or post-cooling of the fresh air mass, which is required to achieve sufficient indoor air quality conditions – without the need for additional recirculation of air.”
The basic principles of PassivHaus (by Passive House Architects)
Unlike more generic approaches, Passive House (PassivHaus) standards achieve thermal comfort through the use of passive measures such as:
– Good levels of insulation with minimal thermal bridges.
– Passive solar gains and internal heat sources.
– Excellent level of airtightness.
– Good indoor air quality by utilising MVHR units.
PassivHaus as a home to live in (by Passive House Architects)
As fuel prices continue to rise, the benefits of PassivHaus become more apparent. A Passive House has a maximum heating demand of less than 15 kWh per square metre per year. This compares to a typical building regulations compliant new build house of approximately 65 kWh per square meter per year. Even the building regulations standard in itself is substantially better than many existing houses.
Research into completed Passive House buildings has been undertaken to prove that the designed performance is achieved in practice. The research also found that the internal temperature of a Passive House will not fall below 16 degrees Celsius (even without heating).
Are you looking for Passive House Architects to help with your project in Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire or further afield?
Please contact us today to discuss how your project could benefit from the PassivHaus standard.
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