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NZ
PASSIVE HOUSE
uon llie is a director o Fcobuild
Developnents wwwehausconz a
conpany that specialises in Passive House
design and building. He is a qualied
engineer and a Certied Passive House
consultant. He is also a board nenber
o Passive House lnstitute New Zealand
PHlNZ phinzorgnz which is a not or prot
organisation which pronotes education and
transer o knowledge linking in with the
lnternational Passive House Association.
lPHA wwwpassivehouseinternationalorg
Carters is working together with Auckland University, Jessop Architects, Proclima and EcoBuild Developments in conjunction with a team
of suppliers such as Tasman Insulation, and supported by Auckland City Council to build the very first Passive House in New Zealand.
O
ver the coning nonths we are going to ollow
the build o New Zealands irst Passive House
and explore in nore detail the dierences when
conparing this build to standard houses.
We will look at.
Foundation and waII construction
Window pIacement frames and gIazing
Shading and orientation
Air tightness
VentiIation
HeaIth
Energy Eiciency
Passive House Certication
The house is under construction in Clendowie and will be
hone to the lvanier anily. When Philip lvanier was asked
why he decided to build a Passive House he said l was
inspired to start the pro|ect when l struggled to nd a
well insulated energy ecient hone or ny young anily
The beginning Design
uessop Architects has created a contenporary split level
anily hone that ts beautiully on the sloping section.
Once the details o the design were established they
were loaded into the Passive House Planning Package
to understand exactly how it will perorn all year round.
Sone ad|ustnents were then nade to ensure that it
neets both the perornance and conort standard that
is a tradenark o all Passive House Buildings around
the world.
Passive House Planning Package see side bar for
more details.
Foundations
When designing a Passive House, one o the critical
elenents is the oundation and oor details.
The inluence on the thernal perornance o a house
ron the oundation and slab is signicant, or exanple i
you want a hone to be at a tenperature o 22C and the
ground tenperature is 15C, without insulation you are
eectively trying to heat up the ground as well as heating
up the hone and that can be very expensive.
A standard build will sonetines have sone insulation
under the loor slab but with nothing under the ooting
and around the edges the heat energy is able to leak out.
This build uses concrete or both the oundations and
loor which is like a standard build. What sets it apart
is the oundation and slab is isolated ron the ground
by a continuous layer o insulation see Fig This
design will elininate the need or underloor heating by
ensuring an even oor tenperature all year round. The
concrete slab can be covered with carpet, tiles, wooden
strip looring or sinply let as polished concrete which
will not signiicantly aect the overall perornance or
tenperature o the house.
One o the positive eatures o a Passive House is there
are no restrictions in the design o the structure |ust
as long as the build and products selected give you the
required perornance or your particular clinate to neet
the criteria to be classiied as a Passive House. This gives
great reedon to design but ensures the outcone will
provide the healthy environnent and energy savings that
Passive House is known or.
Follow the progress o the build in the next entry into the
New Zealand Passive House Diary where we look at the
wall construction.
To follow the blog with up to date progress see
http://passivehousenz.blogspot.com/
Fig 1.
Demonstration of continuous layer of insulation for the foundation.
Fig 2.
Figure 2 illustrates the use of a high grade
expanded polystyrene (EPS) from Expol to form the
continuous insulation layer.
NEW ZEALAND PASSIVE HOUSE DIARY
INSTALMENT #1 By Jon Iliffe ARTICLE BROUGHT TO YOU BY
WHAT IS A PASSIVE HOUSE?
The tern Passive House, or PassivHaus in Cernany, is
an ultra ecient voluntary building standard developed
in Cernany in the 19SCs that saves up to 9C% on space
heating and cooling energy. The ocus is on nininising
the buildings energy loss whilst ensuring a healthy living
environnent or the occupants.
The graph shows various energy standards in Cernany
and how they conpare to the Passive House option.
Pesearch was initially carried out in colder countries like
Sweden, Canada, and Anerica on how to keep a house
warn with nininun energy use. The rst Passive House
was built in 1991 by Dr Wolgang Feist in Darnstadt
Cernany. Ater his experinental build Feist was able to
develop a tool that would predict energy use or any type
o construction. The Passive House Planning Package
PHPP sotware can deternine the perornance o
a building based on the local clinate data beore any
construction is started. lt predicts the heating and
cooling loads, heat loss and prinary energy usage or a
structure, showing how each o the building paraneters
will perorn. This enables an accurate evaluation o the
structure ensuring the design will be energy ecient
without over speciying or little or no gain.
To date the Passive House concept has been applied to
3C,CCC + structures worldwide, ranging ron residential
detached terraced and high rise ats oce blocks
schools, public swinning pools and even a supernarket.
ln order or a house to be certied it nust neet three
nininun standards. We will look at each in detail in uture
instalnents o New Zealands rst Passive House Diary.
The space heating and cooling denand is the total
anount o energy used each year to naintain a healthy
and conortable living environnent.
Heating load is the naxinun anount o heat energy
that can be used at any one tine in the building.
The building air tightness nust be veried with a
pressure test using a blower door.
The prinary energy denand or the total anount o
donestic hot water, heating, cooling, auxiliary and
household electricity nust not exceed this anount.
Why should New Zealand consider
Passive House?
Pegardless o the clinate i built to the Passive House
standard, the hone will provide the best living
environnent. Tenperatures are between 2CC to 25C in
every roon, all year round with constant resh air which
cones reconnended by the World Health Organisation.
This is achieved with virtually no active heating or cooling
requirenent hence passive, saving costs or the hone
owner and radically reducing energy consunption or
years to cone.
f
Space heating and cooling denand
no nore than
or the naxinun heating load
kWhnyr
fcW,n
z Airtightness test result n c.6 air changes,h
_ Total specic prinary energy denand kWhnyr
Strip footing insulation detail
Scale: 1:5
1
A2-08
permanent paving
unprotected ground
1
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2
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6
276mm thick EcoBlock
construction system with 150mm
thick reinforced insitu concrete.
90x45mm H3.2 timber bottom
plate fixed to concrete slab.
expol 100mm high density
polystyrene insulation under
slab. install DPC under insulation
onto hardfill
Soild plaster finish to outside of
EcoBlock.
Refer engineer's drawings for
concrete slab and footing details.

50mm thick XPS Goldfoam

insulation sheet. Refer to
Specifications. Catalog products
Ecoblock Ecoblock
06