The need to refurbish to Passive House standard

While working with one of my suppliers, BASF, a few years ago I had the opportunity to visit a number of projects in Germany.

The first was a Passive House development of new build houses, they referred to them as 1 Litre houses. Due to the fact that they would consume less than 1 litre of oil per M2 per year.

1 Litre of fuel oil = circa 10 KwH

To be classed as a Passive House the specific heat demand must be less than 15KwH/M2/Year for new build and  25KwH/M2/Year for a refurbished building.

The next site was an apartment block which had been refurbished and with the addition of solar PV panels on the South facing wall used no more than energy than it produced resulting in a Zero energy development.

The construction consultants Luwoge produced a report on housing which had been refurbished to various energy standards and found that in addition to the benefits of low fuel costs, the tenants cited the high levels of comfort within the buildings such as good air quality, no damp, no draughts which contributed to there quality of life within the building.

This had an impact on the vacant rates of the buildings lowering them dramatically, it also meant that rent arrears reduced due to the fact that less of the tenants income was used on energy bills giving them more disposable income. 

The attached presentation was created by Luwoge and provides the facts and figures to reinforce the claims made. 

Constructing and refurbishing buildings to create such high levels of comfort and low energy costs does have a higher initial cost but the long term returns justify the higher capital cost.

Click here to view the presentation