This delightful project is a full Passivhaus – not just Enerphit! – retrofit of a standard 3-bed semi, to make a super-comfortable family home. Continue reading “£60k Passivhaus upgrade of a standard 3-bed semi”
Tag: Passive House
Uni teaching block launches large Passivhaus in the UK
Case studies for Passive House Plus: new build
UK’s largest passive building opens to 2,400 students and staff
Completed early this year, the new Centre for Medicine at the University of Leicester is by far the largest single building in the UK to meet the passive house standard — and not surprisingly, its design and construction posed tough new challenges on how to meet the rigorous low energy standard on such a large, complicated building. December 2016
A healthy retrofit scheme for London residents
A sensitive development of social housing in Lambeth combines three new passive houses with six low energy flats carefully created inside an old Victorian terrace. With the emphasis on good indoor air quality, residents are already reporting improvements in health & well-being since moving from their old accommodation.
Post-war housing retrofit
How to save social housing blocks
Post-war social housing blocks are often seen as both ugly and uncomfortable. They frequently suffer from high energy bills, damp and mould. But three ambitious renovation projects show the answer doesn’t always lie in demolition. Oct 2015
Victorian Passive Retrofit
Sensitive passive retrofit transforms Victorian North London home
Upgrading a historic home to the passive house standard typically means leaving the façade untouched to preserve the building’s historic appearance, but the team behind this fully passive retrofit in Kensal Green took a totally different approach. Oct 2016
Archive keeps its cool the Passivhaus way
Hereford archive chooses passive preservation
Safeguarding historic documents and other artefacts requires super-stable environmental conditions. This has usually been achieved by using masses of expensive and energy-hogging heating and cooling plant, but a new approach for Herefordshire Council used the passive house approach to conserve energy, money — and the county’s precious historical archives. Nov 2015
Passive school learning refines the design
Building a better passive school
The team behind a series of passive house schools in Wolverhampton have used the lessons learned from in-depth monitoring of the first two buildings to make the third even better — and cheaper to build. Oct 2015
Natural materials make a warm, homely Passivhaus
Ledbury passive house embraces warmth, wood & light
For the builder and his client, aiming for the passive house standard was just one part of an environmentally conscious approach that put natural, healthy materials to the fore.
The style of the house inside and out is what the owner calls ‘modern organic’ – white paint and render, and lots of natural wood. The carpentry is beautifully finished, with charming bespoke touches. Not everyone expects a passive house to be like this…Nov 2015
Does Natural Ventilation Work? – References and Links
I’ve had a couple of requests for links to the sources for “Natural Ventilation – does it work?”, my article for Passive House Plus Issue 6 (start of 2014), so here is a list of most of them – live as at the time of posting in April 2014, but no guarantees they will remain so of course. Continue reading “Does Natural Ventilation Work? – References and Links”
Passive House goes large
Passivhaus is no longer just the preserve of the self-builder: more and more large Passivhaus schemes are being announced. These include both non-domestic buildings, for example in schools and universities, and multi-housing schemes, generally in the social rented sector, though sometimes with a portion for private sale.
In this article for Passive House Plus magazine I looked at some of the economies of scale available on larger Passivhaus projects, and some of the obstacles that larger schemes may run into. Also, following from my previous article on the cost of Passivhaus, I looked a bit further into the economics of Passivhaus from the point of view of developers and owners – in both the domestic and the non-domestic sectors.
Read the article in pdf here: Passive House goes large
My thanks to Passive House Plus for the use of this document.