I intend over the next few weeks to explain all the main elements of passive house, from triple glazed windows, through heat recovery ventilation, airtightness and so forth. I would like firstly to explain what exactly a passive house is, however, so here goes.
Firstly, I need to clarify that the term passive house is perhaps a little misleading because you might have the wrong impression that it concerns only ‘houses’, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I have visited a range of passive house projects across Europe, including passive house schools, passive house offices, passive house community centres, passive house churches and, believe it or not, even a passive house fire station. So, you can build pretty much anything to the ‘passive house standard’ (including a passive house house, by the way!). 

The next common urban myth about passive houses is that you have to follow a very strict design style in order to achieve the required standard. Week in week out we receive planning permissions drawings from people who want to test their house design to see if it can achieve the passive house standard. We’ve seen all sorts of shapes, sizes and orientations and the vast majority of them, with enough insulation, high quality glazing and good airtightness can pretty easily achieve the required standard. So, the passive house standard is not as limiting as many people assume in terms of building design.

Next, I need to emphasise that the passive house is not magic. You’ll read from time to time that passive houses are buildings that don’t need heating, but that is simply not true. All buildings in a climate even as mild as Ireland need some form of heating – even if it is a tiny fraction compared to a conventional building. As a example, my demonstration home, ‘Out of the Blue’, in Wicklow, uses just 10% of the heating energy compared to a conventional house, but it does need that 10%. So a passive house is not a zero-heating house, but a building that needs a very small back-up heating system and without the need for radiators or underfloor heating.

At a more technical level, there are three criteria that must be achieved in order to reach the passive house standard, as follows:
- Maximum annual space heating demand per square metre of 15 kWh
- Minimum airtightness of 0.6 air changes per hour measured at a pressure of 50 Pascal
- Maximum annual primary energy demand per square metre (for all electrical use, even white goods) of 120 kWh

So I would conclude that the passive house standard is a method of design and construction that delivers a building with a very low heating energy demand. Nothing more, nothing less. I will be giving a step by step guide on the main elements of the passive house over the next few weeks, so stand by.

Greetings from Frankfurt where I am attending the 13th International Passivhaus Conference, along with a group of about 50 other Irish delegates. For two years running the Irish delegation has been the largest foreign group at the event. We’re a force to be reckoned with.
The closing speech by Professor Dr. Wolfgang Feist was, as usual, highly rousing. He joked if people want cheap buildings, they should live in tents! He highlighted that the cost of Passive House elements is continuously dropping, with a new generation triple-glazed window now costing just 250 Euro per m2, a staggering 50% saving. Feist concluded that soon there will be no difference between the cost of a Passive House and that of a ‘normal’ house – eliminating any argument against this construction method.
Next year’s conference is in Dresden, 28th to 29th May 2010. If you’re interested in attending, I’d suggest you contact the SEI Office in Cork on 023 63393. It will be another sellout.
On the social side of things, we were treated to a banquet on board a large cruiser on the River Main accompanied by music, including the occasional Irish jig no less. I felt obliged to teach some Swedish and Chinese colleagues the finer points of the Siege of Ennis, which brought a whole new meaning to the concept of ‘Riverdance’.
I’m thrilled I went to the conference. I feel like I’ve had a complete blood transfusion, all tingly and buzzing and ready for action for another year. I’ve had my fix.

An incredible event takes place over the next few days in Frankfurt, Germany. An annual pilgrimage which draws over 1,000 delegates from all over the World; from Beijing to Ballykeppoge (the townland where I live in Wicklow). I speak of the International Passive House conference which promises the very best in terms of information exchange on extremely low energy buildings. Some of the best minds will be sharing with their experiences and encouraging us to strive even further for the very best in terms of building energy efficiency.
I am reminded of my attending the conference banquet last year in Nuremberg. Things got very quiet after the meal as there was no entertainment, so I took it upon my myself to liven things up with a spontaneous ‘Eurovision Song Contest’, drawing up on the stage some familiar faces from all around Europe (Ireland hammered the ‘rest of the World’, by the way!). In the end we began the chant of ‘we all live in a yellow passive house’ and pretty soon the entire hall was booming out the chorus (beat that Bono…). The night was, in the end, quite memorable. They’re a great bunch of people, this giant Passive House family. I can’t wait to join them again tomorrow.

I’ll report from the conference over the next few days.