Frasers Property Australia is the first mass market developer in all of Australia who’s looking forward to making passive houses through their in-house design team. They know the primary benefits to the occupants are health, well-being, lower ongoing energy costs, and of course, sustainability of the building and they believe they can sell those benefits to their clients. It’s interesting …
A fairly common question during the certification process is ‘What sort of construction documentation is required for a certified passive house?’ Required documentation for a Certified Passive House (Passivhaus) or PHI Low Energy Building is that sufficient to fully check the energy model and design quality and assure that the building was built as per the design. That sort of …
I’ve had the great pleasure of staying overnight in this Passive House with some friends. It was beautifully warm and quiet inside. Although it was cold outside that night one of the other guests slept in the window seat, no curtains and still warm and comfortable. “Gardner House was my first passive house and the first certified passive house in …
More and more folks are realizing that housing contributes to their health. Federated Farmers steps up to looking after their members and their children’s health. Talk about blunt quotes ‘asthma-inducing hell hole’ is plain-speaking. “No one wants to live in a black mould pit or an asthma-inducing hell hole.” “Her response was ‘Our members’ employees live on farms in accommodation’” …
We’d like to congratulate Certified Passive House Fesigner Guy Shaw on his elegant design of this passive house. This elegant design easily met the certification criteria. We are particularly fond of the way the thermal envelope of the building is very simple but the external facade of the architectural looks very convoluted. This is an excellent way to combine the …
Surprise! Australian buildings have very similar problems to New Zealand buildings. They’re finding that mould is prevalent throughout their buildings because they don’t require designing to prevent mould in their building code. Because they don’t design cold spots out of the buildings or sufficient ventilation they have condendation and then mould in their buildings. And as we all know this …
Dangerous overheating in buildings may not be showing up in desktop studies, new research suggests.” “Monitored operative temperatures of up to 47.5C recorded in a highly glazed apartment building in London were not reflected in software modelling of the same building, with temperature peaks in simulated scenarios between 18C and 30C cooler, depending on which weather files were used.” …
This report reviewed detailed test measurements for air tightness and heating loads for passive houses and non-passive houses designed to meet an energy target. From this data the Passive Houses (Passivhaus in the UK) predicted performance matched quite closely to the measurements compared to other non-passive house designed buildings. “Most of the homes were fitted with mechanical ventilation with heat …
“I like to build for people, not for profit”. Quote from Isaac Davidson “If we’ve got a subdivision of 1600 new homes to build, you have to ask is it cheaper to build them to low specifications or build a new power plant, because that is where we are going. You spend 20% more to build each house to an …
