Passive House Design and Construction Module at GMIT

This academic year, I am going to experiment with Prezi to see if it is a viable alternative to PowerPoint. My first lecture on Prezi is below outlining a brief introduction to the module.

Guest Lecture - Peter Smith of Ecological Building Systems

Many thanks to Peter Smith of Ecological Building Systems who gave a very informative talk to the students on Year 3 of the B.Sc. in Construction Management and B.Sc. in Quantity Surveying and the M.Sc. in Environmental Systems. He outlined the principles of building tight and ventilating right, highlighting the advantages of using the Pro Clima Intello Plus membranes as well as the various other airtight products available including Solitex Plus membrane, Tescon Profil tape, Orcon F adhesive, Contega PV sealing tape, Roflect grommets and Duplex tape. The WUFI software was used to illustrate the how it can be used to measure: the drying time of masonry with trapped construction moisture; the danger of interstitial condensation; the influence of driving rain on exterior building components; the effect of repair and retrofit measures and the hygrothermal performance of roof and wall assemblies under unanticipated use or in different climate zones.

He also outlined the advantages of natural insulation materials that are hydroscopic e.g. Gutex insulation products. He also discussed the difficulties on the ground of trying to refurbish to the passive standard. Ecological Building Systems have produced a series of videos providing a step-by-step walkthrough of the installation procedures of making a building airtight.

Again many thanks to Peter!

Site Visit to Passive House Project in Galway

Earlier this morning, Cyril Mannion of Passive House Builders hosted an excellent and very informative site visit for the students taking the Passive House Design and Construction module on the M.Sc. in Environmental Systems at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. The site visit consisted of a tour of a passive house project currently under construction in Salthill in Galway.

Many thanks to Cyril and please note that there was no construction activity today on site; hence the lack of hard hats on heads!

Ecological Building Systems at EcoBuild 2011

Great to see a number of Irish companies displaying their wares at EcoBuild 2011. Ecological Building Systems had an excellent stand and were very busy over the three days.

They have also produced a series of excellent videos outlining the installation procedures for their Intello Plus membranes (click on the 'installation' tab to access the videos). Niall Crossan of Ecological Building Systems has kindly agreed to give a guest lecture on airtightness to the students on the M.Sc. in Environmental Systems and B.Sc. in Construction Management/Construction Economics and Quantity Surveying on the 24th of March, so we are looking forward to that.

Passive House Foundation Systems

Last week we looked at some of the different types of foundation systems being used in the design and construction of passive houses in Ireland and the UK. According to the current 2008 Technical Guidance Document Part L, the recommended average elemental U-value for ground floors is 0.25W/(m2K) for floors with no underfloor heating (UFH) and 0.15W/(m²K) for floors with UFH. The first value is due to go down to 0.21W/(m²K) with the implementation of the 2010 revision in the near future. So we can see that the building standards are moving towards the passive house standard of between 0.10 to 0.15 W/(m²K) for ground floors. Interestingly, Viking Homes discusses the effects of cold bridging for floors designed to meet the 0.25W/(m²K) target and how the actual figure can be considerably higher (see below).

This reinforces the passive house approach of providing a continuous thermal envelope with excellent airtightness and minimal thermal bridging. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has provided some guidance on this with the publication of the Acceptable Construction Details and airtightness and insulation continuity guidelines. This focus has promoted some innovative approaches to foundation designs from Viking Homes, Aeroboard, Passive House Builders and the Green Building Store in the UK (see video below).

Links update on SitePass Blog

A number of links have been posted on the SitePass Blog (at the bottom of the page) to provide a general resource for those interested in Passive House Design and Construction.

First Steps Passive Article - Example of Blog Contribution for M.Sc. students

In the article 'First Steps: What can be a passive house in your region with your climate?', Wolfgang Feist  of the Passive Institute in Germany, advises that passive house details must be specific to individual climatic and geographical regions especially considering the local building traditions and climatic conditions. He highlights examples of applying Californian passive solar design principles to buildings in central Europe resulting in buildings which were designed for large solar gains that did not exist.

He proposes that the 'Zero Energy House' concept would add an unacceptable cost to a project as he sees no extra benefit being gained by increasing efficiencies beyond the 10W/m² target. He maintains that the environmental impact is minimal even considering the use of fossil fuels including oil, gas or coal as the energy demand is so low throughout the lifespan of the project.

Students as 'Creators' not just 'Consumers'

As part of the assessment strategy for the new Passive House Design and Construction module on the M.Sc. in Environmental Systems at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, students will create a blog and submit blog entries based content covered in class. We will keep you updated on how this works out.