Letting out a passiv haus

Carawaystick

Is it legal to rent out a passiv haus?

For example, you must have permanent fixed heating appliances in each room, and you must have a cooker hood or extractor fan in a rented house, whereas these are not needed in a passiv haus?

S.I. No. 534/2008 - Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2008

Victor

Carawaystick wrote: »

whereas these are not needed in a passiv haus?

Do the rules say "Not needed", "can not be included in" or is there a more practical "you don't really need them"?

Peregrinus

The regs apply to " every house let for rent or other valuable consideration solely as a dwelling" (reg. 4). There are a couple of exceptions there, but none that would cover a passive house. Similarly, there are no relevant exceptions to the requirement for a heating appliance in every room, or an extractor hood in the kitchen.

My guess is that there probably isn't a great number of passive houses in Ireland, and relatively few of them are let in the rental market, so they simply weren't a big enough issue to have been taken into account in drafting the 2008 regulations. Given public policy with regard to carbon emission limitation, it would make sense to encourage the construction of passive houses, and to amend these regulations to allow suitable exceptions for certified passive houses.

But until that's done, no, you can't let a passive house as a dwelling. At least, not unless you add central heating, an extractor hood and possibly other things.

antoinolachtnai

You can have a charcoal filter hood, surely?

In south facing rooms the window is effectively a heating appliance. A hrv outlet is an appliance too.

Otis a bit of an esoteric reading but you'd be fine in practice.

Peregrinus

Even a south-facing window is not an "effective heating appliance" at the time when you want it to be - viz, when it's cold and/or dark outside. A hrv outlet might do, but note that it has to be "effective" to provide the required space heating.

The kitchen requires "facilities for the effective and safe removal of fumes to the external air", so a charcoal filter with no external vent won't be enough. (In passing, I admit I'm puzzled as to why a passive house wouldn't require fume extraction.)

As with all these things, the question is not whether you can devise an "esoteric reading" by which what you have done satisfies the regulations, but whether you can persuade the regulators, and in due course the courts, that your esoteric reading represents the legislator's intentions.

antoinolachtnai

If the room isn't cold then the window has been effective. (You could make a similar case in relation to a storage heater.)

If the air isn't fouled then the charcoal plus the HRV is just fine.

I don't foresee any prosecutions in relation to passiv houses in relation to those two items. I can't foresee any convictions either if anyone does waste public money to prosecute something so pointless.

The interpretation above is perfectly in line with legislators intentions. They were intending to provide a basic level of comfort, not dictate building methods.

Peregrinus

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

If the room isn't cold then the window has been effective. (You could make a similar case in relation to a storage heater.)

Oh, sure. But if the room isn't cold you're not going to get any complaints. Remember, this legislation will fall to be interpreted and applied in cases where there has been a complaint or a dispute. You're in a situation where someone complains that the room is cold at night and this is because you don't comply with reg. 7, and you're trying to defend the complaint by presenting a south-facing window as an "effective heating appliance" , and arguing that that is what the legislator intended when he drafted his regs. Good luck with that!

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

If the air isn't fouled then the charcoal plus the HRV is just fine.

But, again, if the air is fouled . . .

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The interpretation above is perfectly in line with legislators intentions. They were intending to provide a basic level of comfort, not dictate building methods.

The legislator's intentions as expressed in the legislation. You won't succeed with an argument that, when the legislator wrote "facilities for the effective and safe removal of fumes to the external air", he meant to include facilities which didn't vent externally. If he had meant that, he would have written something different from what he did in fact write.

I agree, this isn't an issue unless there's a dispute, and if your passive house is warm, free from fumes, etc then there's no dispute and your non-compliance with certain aspecs of the regulations is probably not going to cause a problem. But the flip-side of that is that the cases in which these regulations get interpreted, applied and enforced are all cases where the passive house isn't warm, or isn't free of fumes, or whatever. And in that circumstance you'll really be on the hind foot trying to argue for what you call an "esoteric reading".

antoinolachtnai

Why would the passiv house not be warm?

Why would it not be free of fumes?

Peregrinus

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Why would the passiv house not be warm?

Why would it not be free of fumes?

I'm not saying it wouldn't be warm, or fume-free. (Though, as already pointed out, I don't see any magical reason to assume that a passive house would be fume-free.) I'm just saying that the question of whether providing south-facing windows and a charcoal filter is a sufficient compliance with the regulations mainly arises in a context where it isn't warm, or fume-free. That is the context in which the landlord is going to have to make his stand on your "esoteric reading".

Mrs OBumble

Peregrinus wrote: »

...not unless you add central heating, an extractor hood and possibly other things.

Ahh, just glue a cheap fan heater to the wall: that would be a permanently fixed heating device giving effective heat for the particular situation.

antoinolachtnai

A passiv house has a ventilation system and heat exchanger that extracts foul air from kitchens and bathrooms.

If it doesn't, or if it doesn't stay warm with minimal heat, it isn't really a passiv house.

MarkAnthony

What is difficult about the spelling of 'passive' and 'house'? :pac:

I know the Germans have a thing called a passivhaus (one word) but they also call a nipple a breast wart...

Carawaystick

In my mind a passive house is what my home becomes when the children are away... Its fairly active when they're back...

Marcusm

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm not saying it wouldn't be warm, or fume-free. (Though, as already pointed out, I don't see any magical reason to assume that a passive house would be fume-free.) I'm just saying that the question of whether providing south-facing windows and a charcoal filter is a sufficient compliance with the regulations mainly arises in a context where it isn't warm, or fume-free. That is the context in which the landlord is going to have to make his stand on your "esoteric reading".

I think the fact that there is a charcoal hood and HRV system albeit not linked to one another except by circulating air should be adequate. I have certainly lived in houses and flats with non venting cooker hoods without problems.

Victor

Note those rules don't necessarily apply to all properties, e.g. if they are owned by a council or are owner-occupied or are a holiday letting.

4ensic15

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm not saying it wouldn't be warm, or fume-free. (Though, as already pointed out, I don't see any magical reason to assume that a passive house would be fume-free.) I'm just saying that the question of whether providing south-facing windows and a charcoal filter is a sufficient compliance with the regulations mainly arises in a context where it isn't warm, or fume-free. That is the context in which the landlord is going to have to make his stand on your "esoteric reading".

There is no need for central heating. Some flats have in fact had their central heating removed or turned off permanently after a council inspection. The regulations require that there be heating by a fixed appliance with which the tenant can control the temperature. Instead of providing central heating thrown in with the rent for several hours of the day and night, the landlords have been force to screw electric heaters to the walls and floors. As a result they have turned off the central heating. Landlords have also been forced to install freezers which the tenants don't want and the tenants have smaller fridges and higher electric bills as a result.
All this is to say nothing of tenants being made homeless because they had a bathroom off a hallway of the house their bedsit is in.
The Regulations can be changed easily by a stroke of the minister's pen but there is no inclination to do so.

BryanF

Carawaystick wrote: »

Is it legal to rent out a passiv haus?

For example, you must have permanent fixed heating appliances in each room, and you must have a cooker hood or extractor fan in a rented house, whereas these are not needed in a passiv haus?

S.I. No. 534/2008 - Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2008

nonsense

You need to read up onwhat a passive house is.

A passive house has a constant heat demand the same as a regular house- it's just much lower

It has an extractor from kitchen & bathroom, recirculation hoods don't come into it. The house just works on a centralised extract system that exchanges the stale air with fresh air but transfers the outgoing heat to the incoming cooler air.

I'm a passive house consultant btw