Introduction
Put simply a well-designed, well-built, certified Passive House building, whether new built or retrofit, will have tiny heating bills, will be very bright and often open plan, will have excellent air quality and unusually high levels of thermal comfort. There are already 30,000 of them in Europe. As a whole they represent a revolution in building design.
Building Life Consultancy offers a full in-house consultancy service for Passive House Design and Certification. Two of the architects in our team, Ann-Marie Fallon and Brendan O’Connor, are Certified European Passive House (CEPH) designers. Given our competency in so many areas of construction and building physics this enables us to provide one of the most comprehensive consultancy services for Passive House design in Ireland today.
We can help homeowners and their architects to not only achieve Passive House certification, but also advise and guide on healthy energy-efficient design, detailed technical analysis for potential condensation and mould risk, and thermal bridging analysis. We value a holistic approach, taking all our research and learning through architectural practice and building fabric consultancy and engaging with you at each stage to create a building for the future.
The Passivhaus, or Passive House (PH), Standard is onerous and Passive House Planning Package (PHPP), the spreadsheet that is central to achieving the standard, requires training and repeated experience to use accurately. We have the training and experience. We have repeatedly provided PH consultancy for other architects and our sister practice Joseph Little Architects is currently overseeing Ireland’s first EnerPHit domestic retrofit.
Building Life Consultancy offers two levels of service in our Problem Building Assessment Service, which reflect the differing levels of knowledge about the PH Standard that is found amongst Irish architects:
- A partial PH consultancy supporting an architect who has passed the (two week) CEPH course but hasn’t yet had the chance to put their knowledge into practice, and
- A full PH consultancy to a mainstream architect who has sat either a Passive House introductory course or has no experience of this standard at all.
We start with a provisional examination of the scheme your RIAI architect has created through use of the Passive House Planning Package software (PHPP) giving broad recommendations on improving the design. Based on his/her changes we can then prove the finalised scheme can be compliant.
Diagram to go here
Throughout Planning and Tender stages we touch base with you and your architect ensuring the design remains compliant. This can involve repeated revisions to the PHPP file and advice on details, materials and specifications. If required we can carry-out thermal bridge or interstitial condensation assessments to further support the performance and compliance of the design.
From there through to construction we can project support at each work stage. This ends with full submission of all documents and information required, and all questions answered, for full official certification from the Passive House Institute.
Key performance criteria for Passive House and EnerPHit
| Item | Passive House | EnerPHit | |
| Heating demand | ≤15 kWh/m² | ≤ 25 | |
| Airtightness (n50) | ≤ 0.6 h-1 @ 50Pa | ≤ 1.0 | |
| Primary energy
demand |
Total sum of heating, hot water, cooling, auxiliary &
household electricity. |
≤ 120 kWh/m²yr | same |
| Max. heat load
(recommended) |
For heating source at design temperature | 10 W/m² | same |
| Summertime comfort | Excessive temperature frequency | (> 25 °C) ≤ 10% | same |
Blog Discussion
Click here for discussions about Passive House Standard issues on our blog
Full architectural services
Should you wish to retain us to work as your Passive House architects, instead of as consultants to an architect; we can provide this services through our RIAI-registered sister company Joseph Little Architects. Please click here to access that service.
Please email us at consult@buildinglifeconsultancy.com for a quotation.
