Open Source Content Management

Britain and Ireland’s post-war social housing blocks are seen as ugly and uncomfortable, and suffer from high energy bills, damp and mould. But three ambitious renovation projects show the answer doesn’t always lie in demolition.

The team behind a series of passive house schools in Wolverhampton have used the lessons learned from in-depth monitoring of the first two buildings to make the third even better — and cheaper to build.

Such is the importance of ventilation, it’s only right and proper that the efficacy of innovative mechanical solutions such as heat recovery ventilation and demand controlled mechanical extract ventilation is established
based on robust, comprehensive evidence. But how does natural ventilation fare when subjected to the same degree of scrutiny, and can it work in low energy buildings?

Passive house is no longer just the preserve of the self-builder. With over 300 passive houses built to date in multi unit-schemes and a thousand more on the way – along with major non-domestic builds – increasing numbers of British & Irish developers are going passive. But how will the sector cope with upscaling, and will the most cost-conscious developers be attracted to the standard?

Safeguarding historic documents and other artefacts requires stable building conditions. Until now this was usually achieved with the expensive and energy-hogging use of heating and cooling equipment, but a new approach by Herefordshire Council used the passive house approach to conserve energy, money — and the county’s precious historical archives. 

Perhaps the most common argument against making passive house mainstream is that it costs too much to build. But as building regulations tighten and an increasingly competitive passive house sector emerges, does that argument hold water?

The 2014 UK Passivhaus conference, held this year in Stevenage, was, like the previous such events, completely packed. Discussion centred around fine tuning of financing, delivery and performance — and on how to bring the wider construction sector on board the passive house agenda.