Certified Passive House Register

kboc

Does an official one of these exist?

Thanks,
K

sinnerboy

Voila

gears

Out of curiosity I had a look at this register and with all the talk of Passive builds I was surprised to see that there are only 9 projects in Ireland that are registered. Do most people build to that standard and just not get registered or is it a reflection of the number of builds in Ireland these days.

sas

gears wrote: »

Out of curiosity I had a look at this register and with all the talk of Passive builds I was surprised to see that there are only 9 projects in Ireland that are registered. Do most people build to that standard and just not get registered or is it a reflection of the number of builds in Ireland these days.

If I understand what you're saying it is actually worse than that.

There are 9 in the database, but only 3 of them are marked as PH certified.

I know that there are at least 6 fully certified houses. Some of them don't appear in that register at all which I find a tad strange.

gears

I may be wrong but do you not also have to re-register after a number of years to keep on that list, could there be a cost involved there that people are not bothering with.

sas

gears wrote: »

I may be wrong but do you not also have to re-register after a number of years to keep on that list, could there be a cost involved there that people are not bothering with.

I'm not aware of any time limit as such.

What may have scared off the earlier homes from going certified is that he measures that the PHI look for may be more onerous than those being requested by the local certifiers.

I have 1 very specific example. PHI demanded that I put dampers on my air intake and chimney for my stove. There was no convincing them otherwise even though it was a room sealed stove etc.
I know a member of this forum put this to a local company that can do certifications and they were adamant that it was unnecessary.

I'd love to have the 1k that cost me to decorate our ensuite right now!

BryanF

gears wrote: »

Do most people build to that standard and just not get registered or is it a reflection of the number of builds in Ireland these days.

neither, as far as im concerned the PHI is a 'standard', if you achieve it - you get it certified, if not, I would suggest a word like 'near' passive standard is used. Its very difficult to argue with a client regarding the cost of certification, and that is reflected in the numbers who have achieved it. But what really bothers me is the number of 'builders/ public' claiming their building to a 'passive' but are really just picking the requirements that suit their budget. nothing wrong with suiting themselves, and nothing wrong with attaining a better energy rating than the current regs - but its either passivhaus or passive solar and we in Ireland are building very little of either

I commend people like sas who have taken on the challenge, with them comes more readily available/understood solutions and competitive products that future self-builders will benefit from

Do-more

BryanF wrote: »

neither, as far as im concerned the PHI is a 'standard', if you achieve it - you get it certified, if not, I would suggest a word like 'near' passive standard is used. Its very difficult to argue with a client regarding the cost of certification, and that is reflected in the numbers who have achieved it. But what really bothers me is the number of 'builders/ public' claiming their building to a 'passive' but are really just picking the requirements that suit their budget. nothing wrong with suiting themselves, and nothing wrong with attaining a better energy rating than the current regs - but its either passivhaus or passive solar and we in Ireland are building very little of either

I commend people like sas who have taken on the challenge, with them comes more readily available/understood solutions and competitive products that future self-builders will benefit from

The term "Low energy house" is generally used for "near passive standard" but there is no definition for its use.

I would suggest that there is little can be done to regulate against the use of the word passive in relation to low energy houses as indeed many low energy houses are passive in nature.

It is only down to the self appointed passive house institute who have declared that a house must have a heating demand of less than 15 kWh/m²/a or a peak heat load of less than 10W/m² to be a certified passive house who is to say that a house with a heating demand of 15.1 kWh/m²/a and a heat load of 10.1W/m² is not passive?

It is up to the public (and Industry professionals) to understand the difference between a "passive house" and a "certified passive house".

Buyer beware.

sas

Do-more wrote: »

who is to say that a house with a heating demand of 15.1 kWh/m²/a and a heat load of 10.1W/m² is not passive?

I am

The PHPP rounds to the nearest whole number so it would be passive.

I know someone in this boat with the PHI and they are accepting it.

I do of course fully agree with your point. Like anything life, the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Do-more

sas wrote: »

I am

The PHPP rounds to the nearest whole number so it would be passive.

I know someone in this boat with the PHI and they are accepting it.

I do of course fully agree with your point. Like anything life, the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Ahh there's always one!

I'm surprised the Germans allow for such inaccuracy.

Then presumably a result of 10.4W/m² can be rounded to 10W/m² and certified giving a 4% margin of error!

sas

Do-more wrote: »

Ahh there's always one!

I'm surprised the Germans allow for such inaccuracy.

Then presumably a result of 10.4W/m² can be rounded to 10W/m² and certified giving a 4% margin of error!

Yeah, I think so.

Certainly I played with the PHPP at one point and exposed the decimal places in those 2 fields. It automatically rounds.

I am under the impression that a correctly filled out PHPP takes a very pessimistic view of the world and hence is the worst case. The rounding therefore would not likely affect the overall performance.

beyondpassive

I'm a big fan fan of 'certified passivhaus' but I don't see a reason why I can't use the term 'Passive' for a house that has minimal demand from active systems, I'm sure if we wanted to be pedantic, we could tell Wolfgang that a truly passive house should have no active heating systems. Passivhaus is a very arbitrary benchmark, the targets are derived from the amount of heat that can be delivered through a heat recovery ventilation system without drying out the air. Its focused on post heater batteries in the ducts and predicated on a myth that if you replace a standard hyrophonic heating system with compact in-line air heating, you save enough capital to justify exceeding the benchmark. As if.

Certified Passivhaus is very dependent on location, for instance we have one house built to a very low demand standard which would easily be certified passivhaus was it not for the difficult urban site and resultant planning constraint. Its going to cost €100 euro more per annum to run than a certified passivhaus, The additional capital cost to get from 20kwh(m2.a) to under 15 could never be justified and the house would still have the same spec of kit. So under 22kWh(m2.a) is 'Passive' by my twisted logic, i call it 'near passive' to avoid confusion.

For entry to that database referenced by SB, you merely need to be under the specific space heat demand benchmark of 20kWh(m2.a). Wheras to get the Certified Pasivhaus logo you must be under 15.49kWh(m2.a) and airtightness less than 0.6 ach's at 50 pa. (<0.60)

beyondpassive

sas wrote: »

.
I am under the impression that a correctly filled out PHPP takes a very pessimistic view of the world and hence is the worst case. The rounding therefore would not likely affect the overall performance.

PHPP could be viewed as optimistic, as the weather file data is from a warm period in the 90's and the occupancies are usually inputted higher than in actuality. Like any modeller, there are a lot of assumptions. It would be interesting to moniter your building to calculate how close the actual figure is to the predicted. The first year is often an anomaly and you need to have the house sit at as close to 20 degrees year round as possible.

BryanF

beyondpassive wrote: »

I don't see a reason why I can't use the term 'Passive' for a house that has minimal demand from active systems

where do we draw the line? shall we simply say that 15-20kwh/m2/y is close enough? what if my house is at 35kwh/m2/y? can i still claim its passive? all houses are now required to be 'A' rated so is less than than 60kwh/m2/y low energy? perhaps this is a pedantic conservation, especially as the BER/passivehouse etc was to reduce Ireland/EU CO2 emissions and at a certain point, we should be asking are the materials used & energy sources as important as the Kwh/m2 heat demand.. but that's a chat is for another day

Do-more

beyondpassive wrote: »

PHPP could be viewed as optimistic, as the weather file data is from a warm period in the 90's and the occupancies are usually inputted higher than in actuality.

+1 I did an exercise on my house (prompted by fclauson) and calculated the heat losses of all the individual rooms in the house at a temperature below the lowest recorded local daily temperature in the last 10 years and disregarded any possible solar gains in order to calculate a "worst case" figure for peak heat load.

This resulted in a figure just under 25% higher than what PHPP estimated, but to put that into context the difference is about 600W in a 215m² house so pretty small none the less.

As I have said before I am also in favour of the "near passive" approach on economic grounds. I have optimised all the lower cost options available to me and will arrive at a design figure of between 20-22kWh/m²/a I could get that down to around 18kWh/m²/a with a €2,500 upgrade of the HRV but the payback time for the extra spend is about 30 years. To get below 15kWh/m²/a would need a €10,000 upgrade to the windows with a 1,000 year payback!

Do-more

BryanF wrote: »

all houses are now required to be 'A' rated so is less than than 60kwh/m2/y low energy?

My own entirely arbitrary view on this is that if you are at less than half of what the regulations dictate then you are in a fair position to say that you have a low energy demand.

So I guess that means that by my measure if you are below 30kWh/m²/a you have a low energy house. :P

fclauson

beyondpassive wrote: »

PHPP could be viewed as optimistic, as the weather file data is from a warm period in the 90's and the occupancies are usually inputted higher than in actuality. Like any modeller, there are a lot of assumptions. It would be interesting to moniter your building to calculate how close the actual figure is to the predicted. The first year is often an anomaly and you need to have the house sit at as close to 20 degrees year round as possible.

There is a piece of work down by a Cork architect where he shows (and I have a plot available via PM) where you can see the very same certified passive house in cork if moved around the Cork area (and then to Dublin and Birr) changes its heat demand from 8 (Garnish Ireland) to 18 (Birr) kWh/M2/annum

So its location location location

On monitoring a house - SAS this would be really interesting - to see the results over a number of years

just do it

beyondpassive wrote: »

So under 22kWh(m2.a) is 'Passive' by my twisted logic, i call it 'near passive' to avoid confusion.

You'll have to consider a name change from beyondpassive to nearpassive:D;).

I agree with your point and I note the latest addition of CI magazine features a number of low energy/ near passive builds. It appears this is the option alot of self-builders who look into passive ultimately decide to take. The perspective is the new builds featured is compliance with Part L. What is becoming apparent as the example you give, the extra capital investment to get from near passive (18-22kWh) to certified passive just doesn't get the return in annual heating bill savings.

just do it

Do-more wrote: »

As I have said before I am also in favour of the "near passive" approach on economic grounds. I have optimised all the lower cost options available to me and will arrive at a design figure of between 20-22kWh/m²/a I could get that down to around 18kWh/m²/a with a €2,500 upgrade of the HRV but the payback time for the extra spend is about 30 years. To get below 15kWh/m²/a would need a €10,000 upgrade to the windows with a 1,000 year payback!

Thanks for those figures. I had come to the conclusion it really is the extra cost of the windows and doors that breaks the camels back in getting down to <15 (or should I say less than 15.49!).

just do it

I believe the Denby Dale PH was being monitored by a University for the first few years of occupancy. Has there been any feedback on that? Or feedback on monitoring of other PHs for that matter?