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The Building Fabric Thermal Performance of Passivhaus Dwellings—Does It Do What It Says on the Tin?

Author

Listed:
  • David Johnston

    (Centre for the Built Environment (CeBE) Group, Leeds Sustainability Institute, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds LS2 9EN, UK)

  • Mark Siddall

    (LEAP: Lovingly Engineered Architecture Process, Durham DH1 4HU, UK)

Abstract

The Passivhaus (or Passive House) Standard is one of the world’s most widely known voluntary energy performance standards. For a dwelling to achieve the Standard and be granted Certification, the building fabric requires careful design and detailing, high levels of thermal insulation, building airtightness, close site supervision and careful workmanship. However, achieving Passivhaus Certification is not a guarantee that the thermal performance of the building fabric as designed will actually be achieved in situ . This paper presents the results obtained from measuring the in situ whole building heat loss coefficient (HLC) of a small number of Certified Passivhaus case study dwellings. They are located on different sites and constructed using different technologies in the UK. Despite the small and non-random nature of the dwelling sample, the results obtained from the in situ measurements revealed that the thermal performance of the building fabric, for all of the dwellings, performed very close to the design predictions. This suggests that in terms of the thermal performance of the building fabric, Passivhaus does exactly what it says on the tin.

Suggested Citation

  • David Johnston & Mark Siddall, 2016. "The Building Fabric Thermal Performance of Passivhaus Dwellings—Does It Do What It Says on the Tin?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:1:p:97-:d:62557
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Schnieders, Jurgen & Hermelink, Andreas, 2006. "CEPHEUS results: measurements and occupants' satisfaction provide evidence for Passive Houses being an option for sustainable building," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 151-171, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ma, Zhiwei & Bao, Huashan & Roskilly, Anthony Paul, 2019. "Seasonal solar thermal energy storage using thermochemical sorption in domestic dwellings in the UK," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 213-222.
    2. Víctor Echarri-Iribarren & Cristina Sotos-Solano & Almudena Espinosa-Fernández & Raúl Prado-Govea, 2019. "The Passivhaus Standard in the Spanish Mediterranean: Evaluation of a House’s Thermal Behaviour of Enclosures and Airtightness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-25, July.
    3. Rajat Gupta & Matt Gregg, 2021. "Integrated Testing of Building Fabric Thermal Performance for Calibration of Energy Models of Three Low-Energy Dwellings in the UK," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-24, March.
    4. Adrian Pitts, 2017. "Passive House and Low Energy Buildings: Barriers and Opportunities for Future Development within UK Practice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-26, February.
    5. Camilo Bravo-Orlandini & José M. Gómez-Soberón & Claudia Valderrama-Ulloa & Francisco Sanhueza-Durán, 2021. "Energy, Economic, and Environmental Performance of a Single-Family House in Chile Built to Passivhaus Standard," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, January.
    6. Jihoon Jang & Sukumar Natarajan & Joosang Lee & Seung-Bok Leigh, 2022. "Comparative Analysis of Overheating Risk for Typical Dwellings and Passivhaus in the UK," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-22, May.

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