passive house

The passive house was an architectural design concept dreamed up in the late 1980s by two architects, Bo Adamson and Wolfgang Feist, and supported by the German state of Hessen.  It has taken a little while to reach Australian shores but it is now being taken up with enthusiasm.

 The idea of the passive house is that it is airtight and very well insulated with no breaks or gaps where heat can escape. The obvious points where heat will escape are the windows and air circulating systems. The windows are triple-pane glass with insulated glazing, and the house is designed in relation to its location, the windows being oriented to catch the sun. The gain from the solar heat is calculated to be greater than the loss from the window. The ventilation system is designed to allow fresh air to circulate with a heat recovery system to prevent heat escaping with the air going out.  This means that energy consumption is reduced to very little, possibly about %10 of the energy consumption of a traditional house, and the house is heated ‘passively’. We now have a passive house design that meets the requirements for the highest bushfire rating.

 The problem with existing houses is that they are poorly designed from an energy consumption point of view so that various energy-consuming technologies are bolted on to cope with their essential deficiencies. Better to have a house designed to solve these problems right from the start.