passive house - passivehouseplus.co.uk

Passive house in the spotlight at Ecobuild

Passive house will be represented stronger than ever at this year’s Ecobuild on 4 to 6 March, with a series of events throughout the exhibition focused on the world’s leading ultra low energy building standard. Passive House Plus will also be at this year’s exhibition — come find us at stand S800.

Have energy ratings become an afterthought?

That’s the question I want to ask today. I’m talking mostly about the situation in Ireland, because it’s the one I’m more familiar with things over here — particularly with regards to building regulations. But the same might apply to the UK.

New passive house components presented in Germany

.A range of newly certified passive house components were presented in January at the Deubaukom trade fair in Essen, Germany, including windows designed for use in the arctic and northern Scandanvia.  

Energyquarter launches passive house video tutorials

A new online passive house tutorial video series has just been launched by Energyquarter. The series is hosted by Tomás O’ Leary from the Passive House Academy, accredited Passive House Institute trainers.

UK's largest passive house scheme gets go ahead

The UK's largest passive house scheme, developed by the Broadland Housing Group and designed by Ingleton Wood architects, has been approved for a brownfield site in Norwich.

Looking back at this year's passive house days

The International Passive House Days, during which passive buildings around the world open their doors to the public, took place this year from November 8-10. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the event. 

 

Irish passive house conference just ten days away

See The Light, Ireland's passive house conference, takes place next Friday October 25 in Dublin. Passive House pioneer Prof Wolfgang Feist will be the keynote speaker. 

Will 200,000 homes pledge undermine Labour’s green claims?

Ed Miliband has said that the UK will build 200,000 homes per year if Labour gets into government, while promising to make the UK a “world-leading green economy." If such assertions are mutually exclusive, then they must be treated as hollow rhetoric, indistinguishable from David Cameron’s husky hugging stunt and unfulfilled pledge to lead the “greenest government ever.”

Denmark's first passive house

This is Villa Lagenkamp, the first certified passive house ever built in Denmark, finished in 2008. 

Irish passive house pharmacy breaks ground

Construction has begun on what is expected to be Ireland's first certified passive house pharmacy. The project in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was designed by Paul McNally Architecture.

Passive house pioneer Wolfgang Feist to speak in Dublin

Wolfgang Feist, one of the creators of the passive house concept and a founder and director of the Passive House Institute, will speak in Dublin on 25 October at the 2013 See The Light conference.

PHI publishes research on passive house in tropical climates

The Passive House Institute has published a new study that looks at designing passive buildings for tropical climates. The study concludes that the key design criteria for such buildings include,"a very airtight building envelope, 10 to 15 cm of insulation, solar control glazing, fixed external shades for the windows and ventilation with both heat and energy recovery".

The passive house in a warming world

 The coming decades are expected to bring higher average temperatures, more extreme weather events – and possibly more cold snaps. But how are passive house buildings geared to adapt to a changing climate?

Open day at passive house barn retrofit

The pioneering passive house retrofit of a derelict farm building to create a visitor and education centre at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's Stirley Community Farm, Huddersfield, is nearing completion and will be open to the public on Sunday, 1 September 2013 from 11am to 3pm.

World's first passive house office tower certified

Tall buildings tend to be among the worst offenders in terms of energy and environmental profligacy – but one new Viennese project shows that high rise doesn’t have to mean high environmental impact.

Zephair launches DIY unit for finding air leaks

Zephair have announced the launched of the Zephair Pre-Pro, an "easy to use and reliable way to perform quality control of your air tight layer by under pressurising a building".

What is the next frontier for low energy building?

It's not too hard to remember a time when 'passive house' was a rare, hallowed term. Of course it is still the zenith of low energy building. But there was a time only a few years ago, at our predecessor magazine Construct Ireland, when the possibility of featuring a certified passive house only came along every couple of issues.

Passive house vs passivhaus: the reaction

My blog post last week on 'passive house vs passivhaus' generated a fair bit of debate, so I thought it'd be nice to take a look at some of the reaction it provoked. The vast majority of those who responded disagreed with my stance, and this magazine's stance, expressing preference for the German 'passivhaus'.

Passive house or passivhaus?

Readers of Passive House Plus will probably have noticed that we use the English 'passive house' rather than the German 'passivhaus'. Though it might seem like a pedantic grammatical issue, we actually put a lot of thought into this before launching the mag.

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