Category: PHPP

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This is a Passivhaus Basics blog post that gives an overview of a specific aspect of the Passivhaus Standard.

The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) is one of the most powerful design tools available for designing low energy buildings. It can seem intimidating as an extensive programme of interlinked worksheets, typically used in Micorsoft Excel. However, when viewed worksheet by worksheet is it apparent how straightforward it is.

It is a necessary part of Passivhaus design, both for Passivhaus Designers and Consultants and for Passivhaus Building Certifiers. For designers, it is a useful tool at all stages as detail is gradually built up. And it provides a large degree of the all-critical quality assurance of the international Passivhaus Standard. And finally it is the tool used for certification of a Passivhaus Building.

At it’s most basic, the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) is a collection of clearly defined building physics algorithms. When the required information is entered, accurate reliable results are produced. And it continues to be developed as the Passivhaus Standard evolves and the world transitions towards a renewable energy future. (No matter how slow that transition might seem to be going currently!)

The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP): design tool, quality assurance tool and certification tool + all the essential building physics a low energy building needs.

040 What is the Passive House Planning Package PHPP?

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integrity
/ɪnˈtɛɡrɪti/
noun
1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
2.the state of being whole and undivided.

Breaking promises damages your integrity. Do you make promises about the performance of buildings you design or construct? And do your buildings keep those promises?

Let me share a short story with you.

On a commission where I was the project architect, we reassured our clients that their new building would be super energy efficient, among other things. And yet, once the building had been handed over, I found myself in an embarrassing situation.

In a meeting with the clients, they put me on the spot and asked me why the energy bills were so high. No matter how many times I explained that the new building was much larger than their old building and had a lot more energy consuming equipment in it, there was no way out: in the clients’ mind we had not delivered on the promise of a super energy efficient building.

In fact, the new building was very energy efficient. However, we had never quantified what we meant by a “super energy efficient” new building. Therefore, the clients’ interpretation of this was lower energy bills and all they had to compare were the energy bills from their old building.

Needless to say, this project wasn’t a certified passivhaus building. Had it been, we could have given the clients an accurate prediction of what the (radically low) energy consumption would be. They would have had a good estimate of the expected energy bills. And the building would have performed as predicted. Our promise would have been kept.

Integrity is a reason to Love Passivhaus!

018 Love Passivhaus Integrity
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This blog post is a review of “PHPP Illustrated: A Designer’s Companion to the Passive House Planning Package” published in October 2014. Sarah Lewis, architect and Certified European Passivhaus Designer wrote this delightful and chunky volume.

The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) can seem like a monster spreadsheet at 30+ worksheets (tabs). And the last thing most architects would consider a ‘design tool’. However, once architects understand passivhaus and start to design passivhaus buildings, they quickly realise that the passivhaus spreadsheet PHPP is an essential element of the design process. For without the PHPP there would be no passivhaus buildings as Dr Wolfgang Feist writes in the foreword:

Behind the success of the [Passivhaus] Standard lies the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP), the Passive House energy balance and design tool. A tool of proven accuracy and demonstrated reliability in predicting building energy consumption…

The next step up is to gain enough understanding and fluency with the PHPP to fully integrate it as a passivhaus design tool. And that is where the strength of this book lies for passivhaus architects.

Sarah guides the reader towards fluency with the passivhaus spreadsheet PHPP using three key tools throughout the book:

  • Common mistakes
  • Drawings and annotated screenshots
  • “The Flow Chart” (as seen on the cover)

Camden Passivhaus, the first certified passivhaus building in London UK, is used throughout the book to give real-world context each step of the way. It is also a seminal bere:architects passivhaus project and one that Sarah worked on previously while as a Director of the practice.

An unfamiliar tool can appear as an obstacle to design. Once understood and put into practice it can powerfully inform and support design decision making.

015 Passivhaus Spreadsheet PHPP Design Tool
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