Sustainability & Passivhaus

‘Passivhaus buildings use up to 80-90% less energy for heating and cooling.’

Passivhaus

Passivhaus (or Passive House) is a rigorous, voluntary standard for energy efficiency in buildings. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling.

5 Passivhaus Design Principles

  • 1 - Airtightness:

    Ensuring the building envelope is extremely airtight to prevent heat loss and eliminate drafts, achieved through meticulous construction techniques and materials.

  • 2 - Thermal Insulation:

    High levels of insulation in the walls, roof, and floor to reduce heat loss, ensuring that the building retains warmth in winter and remains cool in summer.

  • 3 - Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery:

    A system that provides fresh air while recovering heat from the outgoing air, maintaining indoor air quality and reducing heating and cooling demands.

  • 4 - High Performance Windows:

    Use of high performance windows / highly insulated windows to minimize heat loss, maximize solar gains in winter, and prevent overheating in summer.

  • 5 - Thermal Bridge Free Design:

    Avoiding thermal bridges (areas where heat can bypass insulation) through careful design and construction, ensuring consistent insulation and preventing heat loss.

  • + Solar Orientation Optimisation

    Passivhaus design optimises the buildings articulation to achieve solar orientation optimisation.

The Passivhaus Payback!

‘There are significant advantages of adopting Passive House principles in architectural design, promoting sustainability, comfort, and economic savings for clients.’

6 Benefits of Passivhaus Design

  • 1 - Building Performance:

    What Passivhaus achieves in terms of building’s energy demand, performance gap, comfort and quality.

    • Low energy demand

    • Reduces performance gap

    • High levels of comfort

    • Effective and healthy ventilation

    • Higher performance building components

    • Better site QA procedures resulting in better construction quality

    • Lower risk of building fabric damage

    • Resilient and future-proofed buildings

  • 2 - Climate Emergency:

    Decarbonisation is a critical part of our journey to net zero. Passivhaus enables the levels of demand reduction that we will need to achieve net zero.

    • Lower carbon emissions

    • Lowers peak demand

    • Lowers the overall requirement for renewables

    • More economical to save energy than to generate it

    • Gives us the best chance of achieving net zero in buildings

    • Enables decarbonisation without increasing fuel bills

    • Robust in the face of short-term extremes and longer term climate changes

    • Ability to support demand response

    • Lower cooling requirement in a future warmer climate

  • 3 - Health & Wellbeing:

    Decarbonisation is a critical part of our journey to net zero. Passivhaus enables the levels of demand reduction that we will need to achieve net zero.

    • Eliminates cold homes & associated health impacts

    • Guarantees good levels of ventilation

    • Reduces internal pollutants such as VOCs

    • Deals with internal humidity - eliminates condensation and mould

    • Improves quality of life for people with chronic illness or disabilities

    • Protects against external air pollutants

    • Reduces risk of airborne infection

    • Reduces the impact of external noise

    • Reduces risk of buildings becoming too hot in summer

    • Improves health of people in schools & offices

  • 4 - People Performance:

    The improved living & working environments offered by Passivhaus can improve productivity, learning outcomes and reduce absenteeism

    • Reduced absenteeism

    • Improved productivity

    • Improved learning outcomes

    • Attract & retain staff

  • 5 - Financial:

    Affordable to run, Passivhaus can also offer lower maintenance costs, reduce fuel poverty, and open access to green finance or better rates on mortgages

    • Lower energy bills

    • Fewer & shorter rental void periods

    • Reduces extent & depth of fuel poverty

    • Higher capital value 5-7%

    • Lower maintenance & management costs

    • Access cheaper time of day tariffs

    • Lower whole life costs. Green mortgages

    • Ability to access cheaper green finance

    • Holds value in the event of future carbon or

    • Efficiency legislation

    • Lower risk of defects litigation

    • Lower risk of repetitional damage due to quality issues

  • 6 - Social:

    Improved wellbeing and productivity reduce the load on health & social care and provides better life chances. These are potentially far-reaching benefits. Often difficult to quantify - they cannot be ignored.

    • Improved health & wellbeing of communities

    • Reduced demand on health and social services

    • Improved learning outcomes for children

    • Economic stimulus of construction

    • Up-skilling of the construction workforce

    • Clear statement of intent for transition to a net zero economy

    • Demonstrates compliance with social value policies & targets

    • Aligns with several UN Sustainable Development Goals

Common Passivhaus FAQs

  • The Passivhaus design standard can be used for varying building typologies, including multi-storey residential, offices, schools, age-care facilities, shopping centre, hotels and many others.

  • The Passivhaus standard was developed in Germany – but not FOR Germany. It is an international standard that can be applied to any climate and geographical region.

    While in Europe the focus is on reducing heating energy, in Australia we need to reduce the energy demand for cooling. Passivhaus has the flexibility to meet cooling targets relative to the local climate.

  • Although there will be an uplift in costs due to building fabric, heat recovery ventilation and consultant fees when applying the Passivhaus standard to a project, the actual additional cost is far less than some costs thrown around the industry. There is evidence that the actual uplift costs are in the region of 2 - 8% depending on the building location, site and market characteristics.

    This should be measured against the long-term tangible savings on electricity bills, uplift in building value and the added benefits of a comfortable and healthy indoor environment (non- tangible).

  • Insulation is the most cost effective way to reduce a building's overall energy demand. High levels of insulation, that is continuous and complete (no gaps) will act like a esky, keeping buildings cool in summer and warm in winter. High levels of insulation are as relevant in the Australian context as they are in colder climates.

    Overheating can be caused by inappropriate wall to glass ratios based on orientation and inadequate shading. Careful design and testing can ensure that excessive heat gain is eliminated. The Passivahus standard has tight controls on overheating, which is especially relevant as external temperatures are set to rise.

  • Passivhaus buildings are healthier than Code- minimum buildings, which may rely on a combination of natural and mechanical ventilation, and an air leaky facade to circulate often stale and polluted air.

    Airtightness does not mean the building is sealed! Achieving the PH target thresholds ensures that condensation and mould growth are eliminated from the building. The Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery (MVHR) is continuously supplying filtered fresh air and extracting stale and moisture laden air. Plus the internal surface temperature is maintained above a level that prevents condensation and mould growth.

  • Windows can be opened to allow natural purge ventilation when the outdoor conditions allow.

    In combination with a natural ventilation strategy, an efficient Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery (MVHR) system will run in the background to ensure an adequate fresh filtered air supply, even when the windows are closed.

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