What is Passive House
The Passive House Standard is arguably the world’s most rigorous quality assurance standard for energy efficient buildings.Developed in Germany in 1988 by Dr. Wolfgang Feist .Passivhaus is based on simple building physics
The Passive House is the standard in energy-efficient construction design that achieves thermal comfort with minimal heating and cooling by using insulation, airtightness, appropriate window and door design, ventilation systems with heat recovery, and elimination of thermal bridges. Buildings designed as per Passive House standard deliver healthy, comfortable and efficient structures
Passive House benefits can be divided into three areas: health, economy and energy efficiency. One of the key strengths is that, to date, it is the only standard where the built performance matches the design predictions quite closely and everything is measurable.
Passive Houses require less than 15 kWh/(m²yr) for heating or cooling demand . The heating/cooling load is limited to a maximum of 10 W/m2.Passive Houses must be airtight with air change rates being limited to n50 = 0.6/h.
Passive House vs Code House
We have started recently implementation of new H1 requirements (NZBC) announced as a “revolutionary act”, with the most significant energy efficiency changes to the Building Code in more than ten years. Clause H1 Fifth Edition AS1 is the current standard that dwellings must meet to satisfy building code requirements.There are some improvements but the question mark is what is the revolution if the Improved Code House still uses few times more energy for heating than Passive House.We have done so far design for houses ( built & consented) across New Zealand and with some recent researches we done we have results that " revolutionary" designed Code House needs more non times more energy for heating than Passive House.The Building Code sets out the minimum levels of performance that new building work must meet or exceed.It seems to be the norm in New Zealand to accept low building quality with poor performances and an obvious complacency when homes are designed only to reach the minimum of Building Code performance, no matter how weak the Building Code is.
What is Your Code ?
minimum or
maximum
IF YOUR ANSWER IS MAXIMUM WE ARE HAPPY TO OFFER YOU A RANGE OF SERVICES IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE BEST ENERGY EFFICIENT DESIGN PERFORMANCES
Every house design we deliver( No matter Passive House or High performing) is based on major elements of passive house design:
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Building location and orientation on the site
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Building layout
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Window design
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Super insulation
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Airtightness
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Ventilation
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Shading
Every our project have been under permanent performances control by using PHPP with Design PH tool in order to get preliminary feedback on the proposed design performances .You can get a quick and pretty accurate image of the building’s energy performance which will help you to make immediate improvements in your design. Ideally using Design PH with Sketchup will provide a clear picture about design performances
Every house design we deliver( No matter Passive House or High performing) is based on major elements of passive house design:
-
Building location and orientation on the site
-
Building layout
-
Window design
-
Super insulation
-
Airtightness
-
Ventilation
-
Shading
Every our project have been under permanent performances control by using PHPP with Design PH tool in order to get preliminary feedback on the proposed design performances .You can get a quick and pretty accurate image of the building’s energy performance which will help you to make immediate improvements in your design. Ideally using Design PH with Sketchup will provide a clear picture about design performances
Construction project management in Passive House diverges from a typical PM role by demanding and incorporating extensive knowledge of Passive House principles
Due to lack of experience and underestimated level of skills projects could run into a number of serious challenges:
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Costing significantly more money than anticipated
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Running into delays and taken more time to complete than was anticipated
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Failing to achieve the performance standards specified in the contract documents
There are two major components in the implementation of PH procedure
PRECONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Preliminary planning
Planning of the building structure
Planning of the ventilation system
Planning of remaining building services
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Execution, construction management for building structure
Execution, construction management for ventilation system
Execution, construction management for remaining building services
Certification process