Discover the benefits of living in a Passivhaus
In our experience, the most significant benefit of living in our passive house is the year-round tranquil, high-quality-comfort indoor environment: the air is always fresh, the house is draught-free, there’s no condensation on surfaces, and the temperature throughout is remarkably constant whatever the weather. An added bonus is that our heating bills are extremely low.
Try out the 3-D tour of Woodlands to see another potential advantage of passive house design: spacious, airy rooms flooded with daylight. And the use of triple-glazing means that, even on the coldest days, you can sit right up against the windows without any draught and still feel warm — increasing the available effective floor area.
Designing your new home using the Passive House Planning Package means you can explore the effects of different sizes and positions of windows (as well as everything else) to optimise your living space and the building’s thermal performance without over-engineering or using guesswork and hope.
Most of the windows at Woodlands go down to the floor adding both to the light coming in and to the views looking out
The Passive House Trust has published a benefits guide to Passivhaus buildings.
Amongst the near-50 different benefits described, there is a comparison of the different energy requirements of an average UK home in 2021; a new-build home (that is, one built to the then current 2021 Building Regulations); an existing home retrofitted to the Passivhaus standard; an average home transformed to the National Grid’s anticipated standard achievable by 2050; and a current new-build Passivhaus. This is shown in the diagram on the right.
Perhaps the key take-home message of this is that if you are planning a new-build home and want to achieve the government’s 2050 target of net zero for your own building now, then you need to consider a Passivhaus with a heat pump. (The example in the diagram on the right is for an air source heat pump; you can find out more about heat pumps, and Woodlands’ ground source heat pump on our website.)
Thermal demand for UK homes (MWh/year). Source: Passive House Trust Passivhaus Benefits
In terms of energy requirements for heating, it is noteworthy that a detailed academic study of the first certified Passivhaus built in London was found to be one of the lowest energy, small family dwellings, monitored in the UK and that the Passive House Planning Package was a good predictor of space heating demand and the risk of summer time over heating.
It is also comforting to know that the world’s first Passivhaus, built in Darmstadt, Germany, was still performing as designed 30 years later (see the video link on the right).
Thermal comfort
At Woodlands, we’ve stayed comfortably cool in summer and warm in winter — including the July 2022 heat wave and December 2022 cold snap — as shown in the diagram below showing half-hourly indoor and outdoor temperatures recorded by data loggers over 12 months.
Indoor (master bedroom) and outdoor (shade) temperatures at Woodlands: 8 January 2022 – 7 January 2023
Indoor air quality
Relative humidity (%) at Woodlands: 8 January 2022 – 7 January 2023
Mainly due to the airtightness of a passive house and its mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) system the indoor air quality is extremely high in comparison with conventionally-ventilated buildings. (This assumes that the ventilation system is properly designed, installed, commissioned and maintained.) We experience no surface condensation (other than very brief and slight misting of a bathroom mirror when having a shower) nor have any sense of the atmosphere being dry, smells (such as cooking a curry or grilling kippers very disappear quickly, and everywhere always feels fresh.
We’ve described our MVHR system in greater detail in another post and would just add that it also maintains the relative humidity in the house in the ‘optimum range for the majority of the time: see the picture to the left.
Experience the passive house difference yourself
Discover what it’s like to live in a Passivhaus staying at Malvern B&B where we’ll be pleased to talk with you about our experiences of self-building and living in a Passivhaus.