What is Passivhaus?

Passivhaus: The gold standard of energy efficient design.

Passivhaus (or Passive House) is an advanced low energy construction standard for buildings. By using high performance insulation and making a building completely draught free, it effectively eliminates heat loss to create a building with very low environmental impact. The majority of heating required comes from ‘passive’ sources such as sunlight, emitted heat from electrical appliances, and even bodyheat, meaning almost no traditional heating system is required.

Good quality design and craftsmanship paired with superior windows and doors, high levels of insulation and heat recovery ventilation are the key elements that set Passivhaus construction apart from standard building regulations.

Excellent health and comfort conditions are key. A Passivhaus has more fresh air than traditional construction techniques. With a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system supplying a continuous stream of pre-warmed fresh air, your house will be healthy and free of humidity and its associated mould problems as well as airborne pollutants.

How to achieve the Passivhaus Standard

In the UK, this typically involves:

• very high levels of insulation
• extremely high performance windows with insulated frames
• airtight building fabric
• 'thermal bridge free' construction
• a mechanical ventilation system with highly efficient heat recovery
• o accurate design using the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP)

The 5 basic principles of Passivhaus

“The heat losses of the building are reduced so much that it hardly needs any heating at all. Passive heat sources like the sun, human occupants, household appliances and the heat from the extract air cover a large part of the heating demand. The remaining heat can be provided by the supply air if the maximum heating load is less than 10W per square metre of living space. If such supply-air heating suffices as the only heat source, we call the building a Passive House.”

Univ. Prof. Dr Wolfgang Feist Head of Energy Efficient Construction/ Building Physics at the University of Innsbruck, Austria and Director of the Passive House Institute, Darmstadt, Germany

“Beattie Passive was the first company in the world to be awarded certification as a complete build system by the Passivhaus Institute in Germany.”

Design Technology to Achieve Passivhaus

Passivhaus standard can be achieved in a number of ways. Beattie Passive offers the easiest way to achieve Passivhaus. Our design technology provides the only complete certified Passivhaus build system (walls, roof and ground floor). This significantly simplifies the delivery of Passivhaus and ensures it achieves this high standard every time.

Why Build Passivhaus with Beattie Passive?

We deliver Passivhaus as standard with every build:

• The only Passivhaus system certified by the Passivhaus Institute in Germany
• Thermal bridge free ≤0.01 W/(mK)
• High thermal efficiency (U-Values)
  • Walls - ≤0.11 W/(m²K)
  • Roof ≤0.11 W/(m²K)
  • Ground Floor ≤0.09 W/(m²K)
• Air tightness below 0.6 m³/hm²(@50pa
• Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery (MVHR) is integrated within all Beattie Passive buildings

In addition to the Passivhaus standards, we give you more!

• No limitations of design style, size and finish of your home
• Fast, efficient construction process
• High advanced levels of sound, fire, flood and radon protection
• Stringent testing and certification for each build
• Experts in Passivhaus design and construction
• Technical support throughout the structural build

Beattie Passive buildings are designed for long life and high performance. Meticulous attention to detail, rigorous design and construction and an exacting certification process, all ensure that what is designed is built, and what is built performs as it was designed.

Talk to Beattie Passive today - experts in all things Passivhaus

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