Passivhaus
Passivhaus (or Passive House) is an highly effective energy and comfort standard for new buildings. Passive house buildings use lots of insulation, fresh air, natural daylight and the sun to create high performing buildings that support wellbeing, all year round.
What is Passivhaus?
Passivhaus (or Passive House) is an highly effective energy and comfort standard for new buildings. Passive house buildings use lots of insulation, fresh air, natural daylight and the sun to create high performing buildings that support wellbeing, all year round.
Its an exciting alternative to regular heating. Instead of standard, inefficient boilers and radiators, a building is fitted with high levels of insulation and a simple, low energy ventilation system.
At the start of a project we carefully analyse your site, taking full advantage of existing features, such as the position of the sun and direction of the wind throughout the day. Our approach means that a passive house design can create amazing buildings, that do not need to cost any more than standard construction.
The benefits are:
A large reduction in energy and carbon usage
Extremely low energy bills
Airtight, draught free homes
A cleaner, healthier environment with improved air quality
How does Passivhaus work?
Super Insulation - The building wrapped in high levels of insulation, with careful detailing to ensure there are no breaks. Think of it like this; a standard house is like a putting on a lightweight jacket and leaving it unzipped, where as a Passivhaus is like putting on a puffer jacket, hat, scarf and gloves… theres no where for the heat to escape!
Triple Glazing - Doors and windows are often the weak point in a building. Passive house buildings use highly quality, efficient triple glazed windows to help keep the heat in.
Avoiding thermal bridging - Thermal bridging, or cold bridging, is where the building envelope features a material that conducts heat, like metal, and allows heat to escape more quickly. Passivhaus design aims to ensure that the building is wrapped in materials to are poor conductors of heat to ensure that buildings stay warm
Airtight Construction - Ensuring that buildings are designed to be draught free
Ventilation - Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery is used to make sure that buildings don’t become stale, stuffy boxes. The system brings in cold fresh air from outside and mixes it with warm stale air from inside, the result… a building filled with warm fresh air!