Grove cottage street scene
Can you tell which house is the Passivhaus renovation (“EnerPHit”) in this street scene? Difficult to do without some local knowledge, but the IR picture below makes it obvious.
Passivhaus is widely regarded as the leading European low energy standard, now going international with buildings in the USA, Canada and the Far East. The EnerPHit Standard brings Passivhaus quality to refurbishment for existing buildings, with slightly easier targets than new build, but still requiring a similar excellence in energy performance. The target for heating demand for Passivhaus is 15 and EnerPHit 25 kWh/m2 per year; for airtightness Passivhaus requires 0.6, EnerPHit 1.0 air-changes @50Pa.
Grove Cottage IR during 2010 winter
Andy, who is CEO of the AECB, the Sutainable Building Association, externally insulated the building with nearly a foot of expanded polystyrene insulation with render on top, over a foot of insulation between new rafters on top of the original roof, new triple glazed windows and a ventilation system with heat recovery.
Andy refers to the project as Grove Cottage’s “100year service”. This energy make-over means that not only has the heating demand been reduced to a level below a tenth of the average UK house, but the whole building is warm and continuously held at 20ºC or above.
One thing is sure, once people understand the increased comfort, let alone the fuel savings, this level of energy upgrade will become a no-brainer. PVs may give you a return on your money, but they don’t make your building warm and cosy.
Well done to Andy for being a Pioneer – we will all benefit from his work here.
