What makes a home passive?

A passive house

passive house

January 2022) Passive house (German: Passivhaus) is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building's ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling. A similar standard, MINERGIE-P, is used in Switzerland.

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Passive house - Wikipedia

is a voluntary set of building standards that aim to create houses and other structures that are comfortable and healthy yet consume very little energy. This is achieved via five principles: continuous insulation, airtight construction, optimized windows, balanced ventilation, and minimal mechanical.

What are the 5 principles of passive houses?

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.

How is a Passive House different from a normal house?

The differences between a typical home and a Passive House are: A Passive House is very comfortable with no drafts or cold spots. A Passive House has very healthy indoor air quality. A Passive House has very low energy bills for heating and cooling.

What are the Passive House comfort criteria?

All of the above criteria are achieved through intelligent design and implementation of the 5 Passive House principles: thermal bridge free design, superior windows, ventilation with heat recovery, quality insulation and airtight construction.

What are the disadvantages of a Passive House?

Passive House Explained in 90 Seconds

How do I make my House a Passive House?

Do passive houses overheat?

Excessive solar heat gain is the main cause of overheating risk in a Passivhaus building. This is easily managed in the design process. The risk of overheating can be eliminated by design. Solar heat gains should only make up approximately a third of the annual heat balance – typically close to, or less than, 15kWh/m².

What are the 3 classes of Passive House standard?

Three Performance Targets

LEED® credits for bike racks and native plants), Passive House brings a laser-like focus to building energy performance and quality, specifically to three metrics: thermal energy demand (or load), total energy demand, and building airtightness.

Can you make an old house a Passive House?

Typically, the PassivHaus standard is for the creation of newer builds, however the new EnerPHit standard has been created to refurbish older homes across the globe. If you own an older home, you can retrofit passivhaus by refurbishing your home to fit the standards of the PassivHaus standard.

Are passive houses hot in summer?

Where passive design focuses principally on heating, space heating costs can be very low, and the provision of good natural ventilation and shading will ensure that summer overheating can be avoided. Some regions, however, experience cold winters and hot summers.

Do passive houses need air conditioning?

It's very likely that air conditioning will, at times, still be necessary in a passively designed home. However, they do allow for a significantly smaller system that's operated less often and at less cost than would be expected in a standard home.

Do passive houses stay cool in summer?

Passive House buildings are designed to be comfortable all year round – cozy and warm in winter (20°C), comfortably cool in summer (25°C).

What heats a Passive House?

Essentially, a Passive House is a type of solar house which is wrapped up very warm and tight (super-insulated airtight envelope), so that only very little heat is lost. The sun shining through the windows (solar gains) are almost all it takes to heat the building.

How is a Passive House insulated?

Almost all Passivhauses rely on: very heavy insulation, R-40 to R-60 walls, R-50 to R-90 roofs, and often R-30 to 50 sub-slab insulation, triple-glazed low-e windows, and exceptional avoidance of thermal bridges (except for wood framing)

How are passive houses heated?

The Passive House standard aims to prevent over and under heating, through the creation of a building envelope which can retain heat and does not require active forms of heating such as radiators and gas fires. The Passive House standard is neither confined to traditional housing nor to new dwellings.

What is the R value of a Passive House?

For Passive House, most buildings require envelope performance levels in the range of R-40 to R-60 for walls, R-50 to R-90 for roof systems, and typically about R-30 to R-50 for sub-slab assemblies.

How much electricity does a Passive House use?

The Passive House Standard for new buildings addresses energy usage and building airtightness: Space Heating Energy Demand: 15 kilowatt hours per square meter of Treated Floor Area[1] per year or 10 Watts per square meter peak demand. (Or in Imperial units 4.75 kBTU/sf*yr and 3.2 BTU/hr*sf respectively.)

How many air changes does a Passive House have?

Airtightness: 0.6 Air changes per hour @ 50 Pa (confirmed by Blower Door Testing) or less to dramatically reduce heat gain and loss (by comparison, typical construction in Australia exhibits air infiltration rates of 10 to 20 Air changes per hour @50 Pa).

Do you open windows in a Passive House?

Can you open windows in a Passive House? Passive House occupants may open windows whenever they want. The beauty of Passive House design, however, is that they won't have to.

Do passive houses need solar panels?

In passive houses, solar energy is maximised as much as possible on the surface of the house in winter. “Waste” heat from lighting and electrical appliances and body heat from inhabitants also add to the heat value of the house, but sometimes a heating top-up is still needed. That's where space heating comes in.

Are passive houses soundproof?

Thanks mainly to the greater thickness of both wall and windows, the Passive House wall reduced exterior noise penetration by roughly 10 decibels. And that's before making materials selections that could further reduce sound penetration, like insulating with mineral wool, a naturally soundproof product.

Can any house be a Passive House?

Passivhaus can be built using almost any construction system. However, there are some universal features, including: Low heating demand: Space heating demand of less than 15kWh/m²/yr. This means a Passivhaus uses 90% less energy to heat than an average home, and 75% less than the average new build.

Are passive houses healthy?

Passive Houses are designed to ensure that Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is assured. Fresh air and a condensation-free environment also reduces the risk of mould, damp and cold spots - healthier for the inhabitants, and comfortable.

Can a Passive House have a fireplace?

In order to operate in “passive houses” or in “high energy efficiency” homes, fireplaces and stoves always need an air inlet from the outside, which supplies a perfect and complete combustion of the firewood or pellets without “stealing” the oxygen in the room.