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BRE organises Passivhaus tour

Posted: 05/02/2007

BRE is organising a fact-finding visit to German PassivHaus dwellings in the Hannover region. A workshop and study tour will be hosted by proKlima, the regional climate protection agency. A full briefing regarding the PassivHaus principles will be provided with visits to a number of PassivHaus homes.

David Strong, Managing Director of BRE Environment says "PassivHaus has been phenomenally successful in establishing construction standards for new houses in Germany which results in CO2 emissions of about a quarter of those currently mandated in other Northern European Counties.

PassivHaus is based upon a "whole house" approach to design - this results in extremely energy efficient new homes (which don't need a conventional central heating system) and have very high standards of indoor air quality with major benefits in terms of health and comfort, (including a significant reduction in childhood asthma)."

Within the European Union, Germany and Austria are ahead with respect to low energy building concepts. To date more than 5,000 dwellings have been constructed in accordance with the principles of PassivHaus design, which reduces energy use by up to 90% compared to existing building stock. The European PEP project, aided by BRE, aims to bring this experience to the UK.

"Ten years ago, no-one believed us that houses can manage with less than a tenth of the heating energy used by average old buildings", says Professor Wolfgang Feist of the PassivHaus Institut Germany. Since then, the concept of PassivHaus design has spread around Europe, with several UK projects now in the planning stages.

The principles of passivhaus design are simple. Step 1 is to reduce the energy demand; Step 2 is to meet the remaining energy requirement as efficiently and cleanly as possible. For a dwelling to qualify as a 'PassivHaus' the following criteria must be achieved:

Energy used for space heating and cooling must be less than 15 kWh/m2/yr. Total primary energy use is limited to 120 kWh/m2/yr (including all end-uses).

Building a PassivHaus is not just a case of specifying components elementally, it requires a holistic approach to energy efficiency and strong management on-site. The main technical differences between a dwelling built to building regulation standards and the PassivHaus standard can be broadly described as.. Intelligent use of passive solar gains and the specification of building features which limit risk of overheating in summer.

By incorporating these features the design heat load is limited to the load that can be transported by the minimum required ventilation air. Thus, a PassivHaus does not need a traditional heating system or active cooling to be comfortable to live in - the heating demand can be met using a small electric heater within the ventilation system (although there are a variety of alternative solutions).

Most of the necessary building components are readily available in the UK, with a variety of UK and European SME's developing new building products suitable for use in PassivHaus dwellings.

PassivHausUK, www.passivhaus.org.uk, is the UK's official website for housing professionals designing and building low energy 'PassivHaus' dwellings. The website is part of the European 'PEP' project, which aims to disseminate the experience gained in Europe to assist construction professionals in delivering housing to PassivHaus standards.

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