certified vrs non certified passive house

HoofRocks

Hi All

I'm just wondering what is the difference of the advantage of building a certified passive house compared to building a passive house that is not certified?

Do you certify to receive grants?

BryanF

HoofRocks wrote: »

Hi All

I'm just wondering what is the difference of the advantage of building a certified passive house compared to building a passive house that is not certified?

Do you certify to receive grants?

Can a house be A rated without a BER? No

And there's no grant

Do-more

BryanF wrote: »

Can a house be A rated without a BER? No

And there's no grant

Can a house be a passive house without certification? Yes (it's just not a certified passive house;))

The value of certification is that it verifies to you and to others that the house conforms to a standard laid down by the German passive house institute.

If for example you are employing a main contractor to build your house HoofRocks it is a good way to control the quality of the build with the final payment being subject to the house gaining certification.

If you are building with direct labour it maybe a bit more tricky to enforce such conditions because of division of responsibilities, but if for example you are employing an air tightness expert it would be advisable to make a large part of his payment subject to achieving a particular blower door test result. You or your project manager will then need to control subsequent work by other trades to ensure the air tightness layer isn't compromised.

It's debatable if certification adds to the value of your house if you come to sell it, it may well be so that in 10 years time it does add value to your house but for the present the jury is still out.

PHI certification is largely based on design criteria (with some on site verification) I would certainly place as much or more value on having "real world" verification of how the house is performing if I was the buyer of a 2nd. hand passive house.

By that I mean that if I were coming to buy your house in 10 years time if you can present me with a file of all your energy bills showing what energy the house is actually consuming rather than showing me a cert to say that when it was originally built it was designed to theoretically perform to a certain level then I would be happier to see the file of bills rather than the certificate.

The German passive house institute has drawn a arbitrary line in the sand as to what level a house is designed to perform at to be certified by them as being passive. It's certainly a good target to aim at but you may find that depending on restrictions placed on you by the planners and/or your site it may not be economically practical to achieve certification. The increase in costs required to get below certification levels will in many cases never offer an economic payback whilst at the same time your low energy house will offer 98% of the savings in operating costs of a certified passive house.

Irrespective of whether you go for certification or not the Passive House Planning Program (PHPP) is a very useful tool in helping to design your house and one which I would recommend (despite some of it's shortcomings).

It's also worth bearing in mind that German Passive house is not the be all and end all. You also have the Swiss Minergie for example or principles such as Passive solar design or PlusEnergy.

BryanF

Do-more all valid points - however its the use of the word 'passive' that I have a problem with, as its become like the word 'eco'. If you were to listen to some of the sh... spoken by local unscrupulous ignorant builders, you'd appreciate why the term passive used without certification is quickly becoming just another meaningless phrase.

I don't really care if people go 'passive' or not, there's an issue of capital cost for most people at the moment, but perhaps a different word should be used is the standard is not attained..

Do-more wrote: »

Can a house be a passive house without certification? Yes (it's just not a certified passive house;))

are we just going to use the term, even though it won't reflect any 'passive' or 'passiv' standard? i think we've had this debate a few month ago..

I totally agree regarding on-site real world verification and the need for post-occupancy evaluation and verifiable data collection over a good few years. its definately something that should be more prevelant in building regs, auctioneers windows and through the passive house institute

re phpp: yes that's where the early design benefits really are

great links btw. there are other approaches to take, especially the passive solar.

the passive house standard works because, as you say 'it draws a clear line' for example, the recent sun-room thread had several developed strategies in the case studies mentioned initially, but most of the technical issues were unresolved by the end of the discussion, it was just going to be sun-room.. thats the point of a standard/ certification process - as in theory at least you get what you pay for.

I appreciate we would all like to build and believe we can build our own homes, and its not rocket science, but with the farcical building controls we have in this country ANY decent assessment method such as the passive house certification should be encouraged, no?

muffler

Not really a thread about pricing so I'll move this to the main C & P forum.

sinnerboy

HoofRocks wrote: »

Hi All

I'm just wondering what is the difference of the advantage of building a certified passive house compared to building a passive house that is not certified?

Do you certify to receive grants?

If it's certified then you can demonstrate to any potential purchaser that the house is of a measurable quality. It is Certified Passive House , full stop , no need to add anymore words.

It might differentiate you - in the mind of a purchaser - from everybody else in say , 10 years time , where everyone else will be claiming passive ... but not certified/near passive / passive inspired / designed using phpp etc , etc , etc. Very elastic meanings.

A history of fuel bills means nothing. How do you know the occupants are not a hardy lot who take cold showers and/or wear their coats in bed ?

So going for certification will cost you more on consultancy and verification fees , no question. It may turn out to be money well spent when ( crystal ball in my hand now ) austerity is behind us and we have a more normal property market in operation. Or it may not.

Using a designer who is a Certified Passive House Designer however I argue is simply a smart bet . Again you will spend a little more for the xpert input but no question about it you will get that back in terms of thermal comfort and low fuel bills.

No6

If you build to passive standards then the question should be is it certified or certifiable, ie it has a certificate from the passive house institute or you have all the relevant paperwork you just have chosen not to submitt it for the time being!!

Anything else is a low energy house unlessyou have used an alternative standard in which case its one of those standard houses!

Do-more

BryanF wrote: »

its the use of the word 'passive' that I have a problem with

Indeed I also have a difficulty with it, the German Passive house institute do not have exclusive rights to use the word passive in relation to houses.

If you are talking about PHI certified passive houses then call them "PHI certified passive houses", it removes all possibility for confusion.

sinnerboy wrote: »

A history of fuel bills means nothing.

"means nothing" seems a little harsh!

But I accept that you have a valid point in saying that if they were accompanied by a log of indoor temperature and humidity and kWhrs of hot water produced annually it would be better. In my own case I expect to have a log of that data, it's not particularly difficult to do.

BryanF

Do-more wrote: »

Indeed I also have a difficulty with it, the German Passive house institute do not have exclusive rights to use the word passive in relation to houses.

If you are talking about PHI certified passive houses then call them "PHI certified passive houses", it removes all possibility for confusion.

ah come on - this discussion relates to the average Joe/OP (non-offence OP), who knows no better, (and doesn't care) and their expected to differentiate between 'certified passive', 'PHI certified', 'near passive' and so on... lets call a spade a spade, if Ze German PassivHaus lads hadn't come along there'd be a few lads like Duncan taking about passive-solar and that'd be it.

this is same thing as the 'A' rated phenomenon at the end of the boom, when the majority of the houses were far from compliant with anything like that standard

fclauson

I would like to cross this discussion with the new draft building regs discussion http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056606132

PHI certified proposes that your building meets a set of performance criteria externally audited - but unfortunatly it will not certify it complies with regs.

So the differerence between cert and non cert is like a TV licence - the TV licence does not improve the picture but it does certifiy that you are legal - a PHI cert proves your build (on paper) will perform to a set of predefined criteria.

sydthebeat

Do-more wrote: »

If you are talking about PHI certified passive houses then call them "PHI certified passive houses", it removes all possibility for confusion.
.

i also have a problem with non certified houses being described as "passive"...

under what factors is it accepted as being "passive"???

is it by assessment using 'Passive House Planning Package' software and limits??

if so then sorry, but PHI DO have exclusive rights for calling a dwelling which compies with their limitations as being "passive" or not...

exactly what parameters are you describing when you describe a non certified passive house??

Do-more

sydthebeat wrote: »

if so then sorry, but PHI DO have exclusive rights for calling a dwelling which compies with their limitations as being "passive" or not...

The German PHI most certainly do not have exclusive rights to using the word Passive in relation to a house.

By all means no one has the right to pass off a house as being German PHI certified if it is not, but the German PHI standard is not the only standard for passive houses.

Here in Sweden for example we now have three different levels of certification namely Zero Energy House, Passive House and Mini Energy House.

You can find the specifications for each here and you will find (with the help of google translate) that the are substantially different to the German PHI requirements.

BryanF

Do-more wrote: »

sydthebeat wrote: »

if so then sorry, but PHI DO have exclusive rights for calling a dwelling which compies with their limitations as being "passive" or not...

The German PHI most certainly do not have exclusive rights to using the word Passive in relation to a house.

By all means no one has the right to pass off a house as being German PHI certified if it is not, but the German PHI standard is not the only standard for passive houses.

Here in Sweden for example we now have three different levels of certification namely Zero Energy House, Passive House and Mini Energy House.

You can find the specifications for each here and you will find (with the help of google translate) that the are substantially different to the German PHI requirements.

So do these require certification and the following of a rigid criteria or do the swedes just decide themselves which name they'll use ... 'ah I feel like calling my house a Mini energy house but tomorrow I'll call it Zero '..

Do-more

Do-more wrote: »

three different levels of certification

In many cases the requirements are more rigid than those laid down by the German PHI for example irrespective of other requirements a Swedish certified Passive house must have windows and outer doors with a maximum u value of < 0,80 W/m2K.

Do-more

BryanF wrote: »

So do these require certification and the following of a rigid criteria or do the swedes just decide themselves which name they'll use ... 'ah I feel like calling my house a Mini energy house but tomorrow I'll call it Zero '..

And before you start dissin' the Swedes regarding having their own certification system for Passive houses you should know that the co-originator of the Passive house concept was Professor Bo Adamson of Lund University where a huge amount of research on the subject has taken place.

Certified

BryanF wrote: »

... the average Joe/OP (non-offence OP), who knows no better, (and doesn't care) and their expected to differentiate between 'certified passive', 'PHI certified', 'near passive' and so on...

Eh its not that difficult, I dont think anybody will have any difficulty in understanding the terms once they look into it. It's either certified or its not. If its not certified you can call it whatever you like but you cannot call it a certified Passive House. The term 'PHI certified' for short works grand.

To answer the OP's question, there are no grants available to build a Passive House in Ireland be it certified by the PHI or not.
Its only a matter of a couple of years (max) when the the Irish building regulations reach the standard. Its hard to see them actually surpassing the PHI standard any time soon but they will make you bolt on more bells and whistles or 'eco bling' to make it zero carbon and then enery plus etc etc..