Passive Houses
Passive House Construction:
The 5 Key Criteria
What is a Passive House?
Passive houses are designed to retain more heat over time. This means that less energy is needed to maintain temperature - much like your thermos flask.
Valhalla Living's focussed design and detailing, together with its experience and understanding of passive house principles, means that we can build you a new passive house that uses little or no heating whilst providing a beautifully comfortable living experience all year round. As a result, you will be the owner of a home which will save you a fortune in energy bills.
In traditional New Zealand houses, a substantial proportion of the space heating is needed to replace heat energy that has been lost through the walls, floor and roof. By comparison, the temperature loss through the thermal envelope of a passive house is minimal and the combination of passive heating and heat recovery ventilation provides almost all of the warmth in the house.
Certification of passive house status is granted after strict criteria have been met. Five fundamental construction requirements, together with proven test results, are used to achieve this.
The five key construction criteria are:
Thermal bridge free construction
Insulation
Airtightness
Advanced window technology
Heat recovery ventilation
What are the primary advantages of Passive Houses?
Extremely low energy use
90-95% less heating and cooling energy use (max 10W/sqm).
This means that a 100 sqm house can be heated with 10 light bulbs.60-80% overall energy savings compared to NZ Building Code compliant buildings.
Thermal comfort and superior air quality
A consistent temperature in each room of the house.
Minimum temperature of 20•C throughout the year.
A Dry, warm, healthy and comfortable environment helps reduce bronchial and asthmatic conditions.
Consistent supply of fresh, heated outdoor air.
Pests and allergens filtered from outdoors.
Low carbon footprint
Minimal energy and fossil fuel consumption.
How is passive house criteria achieved?
Certification of a passive house is granted after strict criteria has been been met using the five fundamental construction requirements and proven test results.
Moisture control and airtight building
2. Heat-recovering ventilation system
Fresh air is drawn from the outside and through the heat exchanger. At the same time, stale air is extracted from the house.
3. Advanced window technology
4. Thermal bridge-free construction
5. Superior structure
What is required to gain passive certification?
Passive House Institute
The Passive House Institute outlines strict criteria which must be met to obtain certification.
These include:
Detailed drawings and technical data must be submitted at the design and build stage.
Pressure tests and onsite checks must be carried out to confirm the quality of construction and adherence to criteria.
All passive houses are Building Act and Local Authority compliant and certified.
Why choose Valhalla Living to build your passive house?
There is much to learn and understand about passive houses and sustainable living. How do passive houses work? How efficient are they? Will my energy costs be lower? Are they more expensive to build? ...and so on.
But the dream of owning a home in New Zealand that is energy efficient - a home that has less impact on the environment, is cheaper to run and is healthier and more comfortable to live in - can become a reality, especially if you talk to Valhalla Living.
The number of builders in New Zealand with the knowledge, experience and expertise to design and construct a passive house is relatively small. Kim Feldborg is one of them. Kim has designed and built his own passive house in Kinloch. He is passionate about all aspects of building and living in his energy-efficient passive house. At regular intervals throughout the year, Kim opens his house to the general public in an attempt to educate and inform people who are interested in the benefits of sustainable living and the technology behind it.
Much can be researched online to give you detailed information, but in the meantime, Valhalla Living has produced an information leaflet that outlines the building processes and the advantages of passive housing.