Passive House (Passivhaus)
We are experienced in working closely with Passivhaus designers and consultants to ensure the requirements are incorporated into the building services design. Recent schemes include:
- University of Exeter Multi-Faith Centre
- Vaughan Road – a Passivhaus, modern apartment scheme
- Clifton Hill – a £12m mixed housing development
- Bodmin Road – an award-winning, £10.4m development
- Newcastle Central Mosque – A new £8m mosque and community building, achieving predicted energy usage of 20%
The team is knowledgeable in using the Passivhaus Planning Package (PHP) to assist in the calculations of energy balances, designing comfortable ventilation, and calculating heat load and summer comfort. Modelling a project using PHP can support clients with evaluating the costs of different approaches to meet Passivhaus and low energy performance levels, including:
- What heating would be needed?
- What is the overheating risk?
- What changes are worth considering?
- How does the existing design match Passivhaus requirements or the project’s objectives?
We also use our knowledge and experience to help the Team develop thermal bridging strategies.
We evaluate overheating risk using IES VE software models to both CIBSE TM59 and Passivhaus metrics. This enables us to refine the ventilation strategy, optimise services design, and minimise energy use for engineering systems.
