What is a passive home?

 

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  If you live in an old house, a cold and windy day often involves superimposing a sweater-over extra, check the thermostat to make sure the heat is actually active and even argue with your roommate to find out who’s running non-stop. Heat (or lower). Even modern homes can be exposed to hot and cold spots, upstairs bedrooms becoming uncomfortable hot and the first floor spaces losing the heat caused by high ceilings or draught fireplaces. 

   

  But in a passive home these winter troubles (or the highs of summer) are a thing of the past. Temperature is comfortable and constant from room to room – no additional layers or thermostat subterfuge required. In fact, there is no thermostat at all, as a passive home maintains its comfort conditions without a conventional furnace, boiler or HVAC system. What exactly is a passive house and how is it different from a traditional house or alternative houses? 

   

  A passive home is a home in which a comfortable indoor climate can be maintained without active heating and air conditioning systems. While other homes may use passive solar design or use alternative energy sources such as wind and solar to minimize their impact on the environment, the passive house is a specific certified building standard designed and respected by the Passivhaus Institute in Germany. 

   

   

   

   

  Heavy Insulation: The most important component of a passive home is an extremely efficient insulation layer that permanently envelops the building envelope – even under the concrete slab of the basement soil – reduced heat transfer between indoor and outdoor spaces. 

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  Design without thermal bridges: The heated air inside a house will follow the path of least resistance to the outside of the house, called a “thermal bridge.” Conventional homes offer a lot, in the form of inefficient windows, poorly insulated walls or cracks under doors, but their passive design eliminates them through superior insulation and efficient doors and windows. 

 

• Air-tight construction: Passive houses are air-tight construction preventing humid ambient air (or humid outdoor air, in warmer climates) from entering the house construction where it can cause mold, affect indoor air quality and even damage the structure. 

 

• Ventilation: Another important element of passive protection the design of the house is its efficient central ventilation system, which continuously exchanges humid and «polluted» indoor air into fresh and filtered outdoor air, to maintain a comfortable and constant temperature and humidity level. 

 

• Passive Heating Technology: Perhaps the Most Ingenious Part of the passive home concept lies in its ability to heat (or cool) indoor spaces with fresh outside air. When fresh and cold air enters the house through the ventilation system, it is heated by the hot air it evacuates. 

 

• High efficiency windows: Effective windows are essential to the design of a passive home. The specific windows used vary from climate to climate, but triple-glazed windows with low-emissivity glazing, argon gas and insulated frames are common. 

 

• Passive solar gains: Passive solar gain, the good old heat of the sun – is the main source of heat for a passive home, the situation of the house on the ground, as well as the size and position of the windows are important factors. 

   

  If you want to learn more about it you can clic here directly : www.alluremaisonetjardin.fr 

   

  Written by mister Dago