Small Overview on the Passive House Project

Passive House is a concept followed after the energy efficient house but it shouldn’t be confused with Zero Energy Buildings.

Passive House is a building designed carefully and built with modern insulation and building materials and techniques and controlled with a program called PHPP (passive house planning package). PHPP is a verification procedure for the building specific values. It is not so easy to find a reliable information throughout the internet about passive houses and passive house elements. However, there are certain hoaxes, which can not be easily defied unless having the proper knowledge. One of them which is circulating throughout the internet is that people can’t open the windows in their passive houses. This is certainly not true because the ventilation system and the heat recovery systems work very well in passive houses, so the heat losses are minimal. The reason on why we should focus on a passive house is easy if we consider the current energy situation in the world.

For example, the average annual energy consumption per square meter in old houses in Estonia is 200 kWh/m2a. This value is around 130 kWh/m2a in new buildings, and this is only 15 kWh/m2a in a passive house.

Designing a passive house, using the passive house elements, such as triple-pane windows with krypton as gas with insulated frames, and double-sized insulation materials makes a passive house more expensive than a regular house, but the cumulative cost of any annual expenses makes it more feasible in the long-term.

To educate the architects and the civil engineers in Estonia on the tips and tricks and details of planning a passive house and using the PHPP, Passive house OÜ, Tartu University spin-off, organized a seminar with the Passive House institute in Germany, named „Certified Passive House Designer Course“ in Tallinn on May 10-21. The participants were mainly estonian, but there were also participants from Latvia and Lithuania.

The course was composed of the essential parts for planning a passive house :

–          The building envelope (insulation materials, thermal bridges, airtightness)

–          Windows

–          Ventilation and heat recovery

–          Auxilary heat supply

–          Phpp package

–          Economic feasibility of passive houses

–          Quality assurance

It is stated several times during the seminar, especially by Prof.Dipl.Ing.Arch Helmut Krapmeier that Passive House will be the building code in 2013 in European Union and will be effective by 2015.

The course was followed by an examination for acquiring the title „Certified Passive House Designer&Consultant“ on June 26 done by the Passive House institute.

Some images to illustrate what was being said

Links :

http://www.passiivmaja.ee/index.php?id=33

http://www.tuit.ut.ee/eetl

http://www.passiv.de/07_eng/index_e.html

http://passipedia.passiv.de/passipedia_en/

http://www.passivhaustagung.de/Passive_House_E/passivehouse.html