Certified Passivhaus New Build
Certified means that the design specifications and as built standards of the house are subjected to detailed and stringent scrutiny and checking by a Passivhaus Institute accredited certification body- in this case WARM. https://peterwarm.co.uk/
This house was designed from the outset to meet the criteria for Passivhaus ‘Plus’. The PLUS aspect relates to a much enhanced renewable energy generation aspect, in addition to the energy conservation and thermal comfort criteria of the standard Passivhaus ‘Classic’. As such a key feature driving the design was a large solar PV roof array to generate electricity.
It was also an objective from the beginning to utilise heavyweight construction methods so as to create thermal mass within the house and thus to obtain the environmental comfort aspects associated with that approach. The house uses a wide cavity masonry external wall construction, fully filled with 300 mm of mineral fibre insulation. The stringent airtightness requirement uses the sealing-up properties of wet applied plaster to the inside of the walls. This form of construction might be described as an adaptation of typical UK building domestic building methods, but upgraded to meet Passivhaus performance requirements.
The rooftop solar PV array Is rated at 11 Kw peak, and is associated with a battery storage facility. In combination with the onsite storage of wood pellet boiler fuel the house is intended to possess a good resilience in the event of any interruption to the mains electricity supply. Unfortunately at Certification stage it was determined that the on site energy generation via the solar PV array was still just insufficient to meet the level of power generation to that meet the Plus standard , and it is certified instead as Classic. A further factor is that the house had to be adjusted from the optimal solar orientation to meet planning requirements.
Noel Wright Architects were responsible for
- Scheme design and obtaining planning consent
- Technical resolution including working drawings and achieving regulatory consents
- Subsequent input into the building phase
- Passivhaus Designer role including preparation of all evidence required to achieve certification by accredited certification body- Warm
- CDM Principal Designer duty
