What is the passive house standard?
Oct 13, 2021 · As mentioned, the PHI definition of a passive house is a building standard that is truly energy-efficient, comfortable, and affordable at the same time. The PHI does not declare resilience as one of the movements’ goals, thus resilience is …
What is the Passivhaus standard?
Oct 15, 2009 · October 15, 2009. Very Cold Cold. The Passivhaus (PH) standard is a set of voluntary criteria for an ultra-low energy use home. Originally developed in Germany for houses and low-rise multi-unit residential buildings, the standard has been applied to houses in a range of other countries and to commercial buildings as well.
What is passive house (PH)?
Several rehabilitation projects of apartment buildings all used passive house components, but implemented different airtightness designs. Two projects (24 and 52 apartments in Ludwigshafen and Frankfurt am Main, respectively) were carried out in the traditional way, using the interior plaster in the area of the external walls.
Are passive houses energy efficient?
Jul 09, 2021 · The Passive House Standard is concerned with how efficiently the building functions for the life of the building. If buildings account for about one-third of the energy consumed in the United States and the average life span of a typical structure is 120 years, then reducing the energy draw by buildings can have a substantial impact.
What are Passive House standards?
The Passive House standard (Passivhaus in German) is one of the world's most aggressive, proven, voluntary approaches to radical energy reduction, assured indoor air quality, durability, and thermal comfort in the world today. The Passive House standard has roots in Sweden, Germany, Canada and the US.
What is a required characteristic of a Passive House building?
Fundamental to the energy efficiency of these buildings, the following five principles are central to Passive House design and construction: 1) superinsulated envelopes, 2) airtight construction, 3) high-performance glazing, 4) thermal-bridge-free detailing, and 5) heat recovery ventilation.Jan 1, 2019
What is the R value for Passive House?
Insulation and Airtightness Insulation levels of walls of Passivhaus's are generally in the range of R-40 to R-60 for walls, R-60 to R-90 for roofs, and R-30 to 50 for slabs.Oct 15, 2009
Are ICF homes passive?
The Technical Criteria for Building A Passive Home When building with ICFs, you can import your design into the software. You then have to meet a certain WUFI rating to be considered a passive home.Sep 25, 2019
How much less energy does a passive house use?
Passive House (Passivhaus) buildings consume up to 90 percent less heating and cooling energy than conventional buildings. Applicable to almost any building type or design, the Passive House high-performance building standard is the only internationally recognized, proven, science-based energy standard in construction.
Are Passive Houses more expensive to build?
HOW MUCH DOES A PASSIVE HOUSE COST? As expected, it is more expensive to build a passive house than a conventional house. Extra construction cost is likely to be 10% to 15% more, but savings on utility bills completely offset this after just few years.
How wide are passive house walls?
The walls of a passive home are at a minimum of 6-inches thick, and in some places, may go to as much as 12-inches thick to accommodate additional insulation. Some people fear that these thicker walls are going to take up too much interior space, decreasing valuable square footage.Feb 3, 2017
What insulation is used in passive houses?
Thermal insulation Thermal insulation for Passive Houses must be extremely effective and so thick walls are built up using 'super insulation' to achieve high R-values. High-grade insulation ensures that the home is well insulated all year round which stops heat gained from the sun from leaking out.
What's the difference between R19 and R30 insulation?
There is a direct relationship between the amount of insulation and the amount of heat transfer. The bigger the R value, the better the insulation is at slowing down the heat transfer. So R19 is better insulation than R13, and R30 is better than R19. The larger the R value, the better the insulation value.Dec 28, 2013
What is an ICF home?
Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) are becoming a more common way to build homes. This innovative building material is typically made of blocks of polystyrene foam with space in between to pour a concrete wall.Dec 1, 2021
How do you build a house with ICF?
10 Steps For Building an ICF HomeExcavation and site preparation.Form the footings and reinforce per engineer's instructions.Place the concrete footing forms. ... Stack the Fox Blocks forms - blocks.Step 5: Install vertical alignment bracing around the entire structure to secure the walls.More items...
What is passive house?
However, it is widely acknowledged that very efficient appliances and lighting must be used to meet the primary/source energy targets in most cases.
What is the insulation level of Passivhaus windows?
Insulation levels of walls of Passivhaus’s are generally in the range of R-40 to R-60 for walls, R-60 to R-90 for roofs, and R-30 to 50 for slabs. Perhaps just as importantly, thermal bridges are rather accurately accounted for in the calculation methodology.#N#Window specifications are also demanding. A common specification is for U=0.15 (0.8 W/m 2 K) or less for windows. It is not clear how to translate these values to North America, as the NFRC testing methods generally result in about a 10% increase in heat flow for the same window as compared to European standards. However, to approach these targets windows certainly need to have non-conductive frames (vinyl, wood or fiberglass) and triple-glazing, low-e coatings and gas. In fact, it is very difficult to find commercially-available operable windows that can achieve these specifications, and imported PH-certified windows reportedly cost about twice as much ($90-100 per square foot) as much more readily available triple-glazed fiberglass windows (R6 at $50/sf).#N#The airtightness level of <0.6 ACH@50 is also extraordinary. It is achieved in North America by very few homes, and always when built as special custom houses, usually with a very simple plan form and simple roof lines. One Swedish prefabricated house exporter 2 states that it does not recommend Passivhaus standards for any of its house plans other than single-storey ranches because of its experience with the difficulty of reliably meeting the stringent airtightness target with other than the simplest of building shapes.
Where was Passivhaus developed?
Originally developed in Germany for houses and low-rise multi-unit residential buildings, the standard has been applied to houses in a range of other countries and to commercial buildings as well. The most interesting aspect of the criteria of the Passivhaus standard may be that it has relatively few mandatory requirements, ...
How much does PV cost?
PV is currently the most expensive un-subsidized form or renewable energy, often at a cost of 50 to 70 cents per kWh. Many renewable and/or no-carbon sources of electricity (such as wind, bio-mass, tidal, etc) can be produced for 1/2 to 1/3 this cost (see also BSI-026: Passivhaus Gets Active ).
What does it mean when a house is airtight?
When a house is airtight, the indoor environment can be maintained without having the air conditioner or heater run as often. If a house is leaky, it’s like having a window open with the air conditioner running. (That said, you don’t have to live sealed shut: you can leave windows and doors open in a passive house.)
What is balanced ventilation?
With balanced ventilation, fresh air entering the building is equal to the exhaust air exiting it. (The air flows need to be balanced so that the air inside the house doesn’t get pressurized, which would lead to an increase in air infiltration.)
What is an enerphit?
There’s a more attainable standard called EnerPHit, a version of passive house design for retrofits of existing buildings. It, too, is a set of standards—including use of thermal insulation, high-quality windows, and ventilation with highly efficient heat recovery— that provide significant energy savings.
What is passive house?
Passive House is a voluntary building standard that primarily addresses energy use and envelope airtightness. To be certified as Passive House through Passive House Institute (PHI), a building must not exceed an annual heating and cooling demand based on location and climate using the Passive House Planning Package. Total primary energy (source EUI) must be under 38.1 kBtu/sf/yr. And the building must not leak more air than 0.6 times the volume per hour at 50 pascals, as tested by a blower door.
What is the target air change per hour for passive house?
In addition to source EUI, the other metrics used for scoring a Passive House project include the total heating and cooling demand—which is established based on the specific region and climate of the facility—and the envelope airtightness, where the target is 0.6 air changes per hour (ACH), at 50 pascals.
How many beds are there in Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital?
The 262,000-sf, 132-bed Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, designed by Perkins+Will, is one of the largest inpatient rehabilitation facilities in the United States. In addition to being certified LEED Gold, it uses many Passive House design elements, including a robust envelope with triple-glazed windows that can be opened.
The Passivhaus requirements
First, let me say a few words on terminology. When I use the word “Passivhaus,” I’m referring to the German program promulgated by the Passivhaus Institut. When I use the term “Passive House,” I’m talking about the North American program of PHIUS (which, by the way, stands for Passive House Institute US).
But will it work for North America?
Professor John Straube wrote a critique of the Passivhaus program in 2009. He compared homes designed to meet Passivhaus requirements with homes in the US Department of Energy’s Building America program. It’s a great read and a good starting point to understand why the Passivhaus standard needed modification for North America.
Who is the founder of the passive house institute?
Finally, at last year’s Passive House Conference, founder of the institute, Dr. Wolfgang Feist, launched EnerPHit, a passive house certificate for the modernization of old buildings.
What is PHPP software?
In choosing how to spend the budget on a passive retrofit, PHPP, the passive house software, becomes a very powerful design tool. In their EnerPHit project in Monkstown, Brendan O’Connor of Joseph Little Architects says that the software was first used to see if the EnerPHit standard could be reached and where the design was falling short. “It gave us a template for changes from an earlier specification. There are often compromises with existing buildings; the key thing is to know their significance. For instance we thought thermal bridging through internal masonry walls bypassing new insulated floors would be problematic, but thermal bridge analysis of our details and inputs into PHPP proved the additional heat loss would be insignificant.”
When was the first passive house built?
The first Passive House, “Darmstadt House” was completed in 1991 near Frankfurt, Germany by Wolfgang Feist. It was provided with “a highly precise data measurement and acquisition system to examine the achievements of the project’s objectives” (Passive House Academy 2017, 12).
What is the Anthropocene?
In May of 2019, the Anthropocene Working Group voted to designate a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, an era in which people have become a major geological force (Subramanian, 2019).
What is the IECC?
Since its inception, the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), the foundation for most US energy codes, has offered an equivalent predictive performance pathway as an alternate to the prescriptive compliance method (ICC, 2018).