Category: Comfort

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Our baby was born early in April, just as Spring is arriving here in the northern hemisphere.

Our house isn’t a passivhaus home.

There are many reason’s why we don’t yet live in a passivhaus home, but that isn’t the subject of this blog post. Now with a new baby as well as our toddler, even more so than before, I wish we did live in a passivhaus home. I care very deeply about the comfort and health of our children. And knowing first-hand the benefits of the Passivhaus Standard, I am acutely aware of what we are missing out on.

Affordable to run, comfortable and healthy to live in, passivhaus homes are ideally suited to young families. Of course, passivhaus homes are ideally suited for all people to live in! However, young children are particularly vulnerable and in need of comfortable and healthy homes. And with the cost of bring up children, parents need a comfortable and healthy home to be affordable.

Sustainable and environmental design are often talked about in terms of the benefit for future generations. Unfortunately, despite the good intentions, this can be abstract and vague. The Passivhaus Standard, on the other hand, is a practical immediate solution that benefits the next generation, today.

The Passivhaus Standard ensures homes are comfortable, healthy and affordable to run. Passivhaus homes are of immediate benefit to next generation: our children.

024 Passivhaus for the kids
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The Passivhaus Standard delivers radically energy efficient buildings with excellent occupant comfort. I have written about the comfort aspects of passivhaus before in the Gary Vaynerchuk inspired post and in one of the LovePH series.

Heating is a key element of occupant comfort. So why does the Passivhaus Standard have a limiting benchmark for heating energy of 15kWh/m2 per annum? Isn’t this contradictory?

While this may seem contradictory, there are good reasons for it. Firstly, heating makes up a significant proportion of energy consumption in buildings, so it needs to be addressed to improve energy efficiency and reduce climate change impact. Secondly, setting a very low heating energy benchmark drives a fabric first approach, which has several benefits, comfort being a key one. And thirdly, having a heating energy benchmark singled out from primary energy means it can’t be achieved by offsetting with renewables or any other energy accounting cheats.

15kWh/m2 for comfort – delivered with radical energy efficiency, fabric first design and no cheating!

022 Passivhaus Less Heating More Comfort
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What is the fundamental purpose of a building?

Buildings serve several needs of society – primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) and the outside (a place that at times may be harsh and harmful).
– Wikipedia

As you can see, comfort is fundamental to the purpose of a building. So why do we find it so hard to ensure our buildings are actually comfortable? Why does our ‘world-class’ architecture still fail to provide comfortable buildings to live, work, learn and play in? (Besides using far too much energy and emitting far too much CO2!)

The Passivhaus Standard is known as the world’s foremost building energy efficiency standard. And it is that, but it is also a comfort standard. After all, what is the point of a building being energy efficient (or low carbon for that matter) if it compromises the functionality and comfort of the people who use the building? Passivhaus buildings provide exemplary comfort for the occupants by maintaining a healthy comfortable temperature, by being quiet, by having fresh air and by being draught-free.

Comfort is a reason to Love Passivhaus!

019 Love Passivhaus Comfort
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Gary Vaynerchuk, the social media superstar and business leader, released a book in 2013 called “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” (#JJJRH) which uses a Boxing analogy to highlight the best approach to using social media channels. Jabbing is giving value to your followers & community, and the follow up Right Hook is asking for something, whether this be attention or sales. This means at least 75% of your posting on social media should be about giving value and sharing useful information and insights with your followers and community, not asking for attention or for a sale. Everyone appreciates generosity over being repeatedly asked for attention.

What has this got to do with passivhaus? The Passivhaus Standard is most well known as “the world’s leading standard in energy efficient design.” And energy efficiency asks building owners and occupants for something. It asks them to at least modify their behaviour and to pay more attention to the operation of their building. However, energy efficiency is actually only part of passivhaus. People don’t often realise that the Passivhaus Standard is also a rigorous comfort standard that ensures a building is free from draughts, free from cold spots, free from excessive over heating and provided with a constant supply of fresh clean air. And it does so with the minimum amount of energy.

Passivhaus throws an outstanding “Jab, Jab, Jab” of occupant comfort before hitting home with the solid “Right Hook” of energy efficiency.

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