Passive house
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The concept of passive house is a (German) house energy norm ; the term is used for a kind of houses. It's a type of house needing very little energy to run. It provides a comfortable temperature all year round without using conventional heating - in opposition to a conventionally built house.
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[edit] What's a passive house ?
[edit] Energy norm
Having a passive house is a way to lessen one's energy consumption. A building may be called a passive house if it is almost self-sustaining for heat, if it only uses solar panels, metabolic inputs (residents, machines) and a good thermal insulation, so that heating is just an aid. The "Passivhaus" German norm is given to houses spending less 15kWh/m²/year for heat and less than 50kWh/m²/year of final energy (heat + water-heating energy + ventilation energy + air conditioning + home electricity). This low caloric need means that these buildings use a heating system only few days per year. As a comparison, houses from the sixties and seventies need (in average) 320 kWh/m²/year.
Also, the norm fixes a set of requirements for the thermal resistance of the different elements of the building (walls, windows, roof etc...), however one can respect the thermal performances without following these requirements. There are actually two ways of reducing the energetic consumption:
- the first consists in increasing the insulation to decrease the heat losses. This is called over-insulation which uses for instance triple glazing or multiple layers of insulation.
- the second consists in increasing the solar input, this is the bioclimatic house, looking to better capture instead of losing less (because the energy is free and renewable).
