Passive House is not a protected term this has lead to the term being abused.  The Passive House institute of Germany is what most others and we use as the definition/criteria for passive house.  The German term ‘passivhaus’ and the English term ‘passive house’ are the same.  The German term passivhaus is a little misleading as the word ‘haus’ in this context is intended to mean ‘build’ rather than house.  This then has lead to the English term to be seen as only referring to houses, which is unfortunate as any build can be designed with the passive house concept in mind.

A passive house can use up to 90% less than conventional designs.

Passive House is a design concept that has no predetermined materials in mind.  It is a sophisticated design methodology using physics to lower the required heating and energy consumption of the house to the passive house standard.  This is carried out using a program provided by the, Passive house Institute, Darmstadt, Germany.  This software is called the ‘Passive House Planning Package’ and is referred to as ‘PHPP’.

In order for a passive house to meet the ‘Passive House Institutes’ standard it must meet the following criteria.

Less than 15 kWh/(m²yr) for heating or cooling for the living space.

The heating/cooling load is limited to a maximum of 10 W/m²

Primary energy use may not exceed 120 kWh/(m²a).

Air change rates being limited to n₅₀ = 0.6/h.

Over heating to be no more than 10 % of the time.  Over heating is higher than 25 celsius.

Passive House does this by factoring the following into a sophisticated design methodology.

• Insulation
• Thermal bridging elimination/reduction
• Draft reduction/airtightness
• Heat recovery
• Solar gain
• Specific site information climate/layout

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To find out more come to our open days or attend one of our courses or just contact us: info@passivedevelopment.ie or 087 6491257