Overview

• Passive House (PH) is a tried and true performance standard for building extremely low energy buildings.
• The up-front costs are easily absorbed over the life time of the building because expensive plant is significantly reduced and does not require as much maintenance / replacement.
• Many parts of Europe have a requirement for all their social housing & public buildings to be PH standard.
• The PH system is most beneficial to those in our community who are struggling to pay for heating.
• Through the PH Planning Package software building performance is guaranteed.
• PH buildings are very comfortable and quiet with good air quality and high occupant satisfaction.

Benefits for social housing providers

• Social housing providers would be showing leadership in building design.
• A PH building would provide an excellent learning opportunity for other providers to learn about PH.
• Tenants who currently cannot afford heating would be able to do so because heating bills would typically be less than one fifth or less compared with a typical Code built house.
• For those tenants who are not heating their homes, the PH system would still provide a healthy home.
• Because of the high surface temperatures achieved in PH homes it is not possible for black mould to grow.
• Health issues arising from poor housing would be reduced meaning that there are benefits to other social health providers.

Thermal comfort and health

• A PH building stays at a constant temperature throughout the year and there is little difference between summer and winter or day and night.
• The internal thermal comfort can be controlled by occupants leading to fewer complaints.
• The air quality is excellent.
• There are very small variations of internal ambient temperature, so no cold / hot spots which annoy occupants.
• PH houses are quiet without the constant noise of plant cycling through cooling or heating.
• Once a PH has been ‘experienced’, it is very hard to accept anything less.

Energy / Operational costs

• A Code standard house could consume over 100kWhr/m2/annum for heating but as a PH the building would consume less than 15KWhr/m2/annum.
• There is significantly less heating plant to maintain and replace.

Construction

• There are existing pre-fabricated wall systems that could be used that already have the windows installed together with an air-tightness layer for quick construction on site.
• This project would also educate the construction community in the challenges and benefits of PH.
• It is possible that local companies could supply some of the building elements such as windows.