Bringing Passivhaus out of the closet

The new Passivhaus home being built by bere:architects in West Hampstead is starting to take shape.
The foundations are now in. The exposed pipes have to be perfectly positioned in order to match up to the wooden shell which is being made in Austria. In the photo below you can see the thickness of the super-insulated walls being made in the Austrian factory.

Passivhaus buildings have been around for more than 20 years on the continent. In Frankfurt all new public buildings have to be Passivhaus. In Belgium all new schools have to be Passivhaus. Over here we have one Passivhaus office/home in Wales and a few more across the UK that are on the verge of certification.

The main constraints in Britain at the moment are: a) the inadequate skills base; b) the lack of suitable building materials; and c) the fact that lifetime energy bills are rarely included in the build cost. Passivhaus buildings are between zero and 7% more expensive than building regulations. However if you add lifetime energy bills to the build cost, or even 20 years of energy bills, then they are cheaper. Unfortunately Britain is a nation of short termists.

But perhaps worse than the short termism is the impression I repeatedly get from talking to planners, developers and civil servants that Passivhaus is seen as not suitable for British climes and frankly a bit German.

Fortunately the Buildings Research Establishment, BRE, who are now able to certify Passivhaus buildings in the UK, has recently published a useful primer explaining the benefits of Passivhaus. It explodes a few Passivhaus urban myths like the idea that you can't open the windows in the summer. It also says: "The fabric performance requirements required for level 6 of the Code [for Sustainable Homes] are based upon the PassivHaus standard. With the exception of flats, it is not generally possible to achieve Code Level 6 without adopting a performance specification [meaning energy efficiency standard] similar to PassivHaus.”

In other words, there is no other way to reach zero carbon homes without using the 20+ years of research work that has gone into the Passivhaus standard.

There is no other serious energy efficiency standard out there so let's stop trying to re-invent the wheel.