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Passive Homes The term passive house refers to a specific construction standard for residential buildings with good comfort conditions during winter and summer, without traditional heating systems and without active cooling. Typically this includes very good insulation levels, very good airtightness of the building, whilst a good indoor air quality is guaranteed by a mechanical ventilation system with highly efficient heat recovery. The annual heating demand must be less than 15kWh/mē/yr. The total primary energy use for all appliances, domestic hot water and space heating and cooling may not exceed 120kWh/mē/yr. With this as a starting point, additional energy requirements may be completely covered using renewable energy sources. A passive house has a high level of insulation with minimal thermal bridges, low infiltration and utililizes passive solar gains and heat recovery to accomplish these characteristics. Consequently renewable energy sources can be used to meet the resulting energy demand. Building the passive house means mainly: Reducing the heat losses by better insulation Reducing the heat losses by extreme air-tightness of the building Guaranteed air quality by Mechanical Ventilation Systems with highly efficient heat recovery Using passive energy (earth energy, solar energy, ) Low energy demand by using efficient appliances. Passive solar heating -70% of the total window area facing south When these points are fullfilled then the building is able to guarantee the comfortable indoor climate without needing a conventional heating system (and related energy bill). The building is no longer heated actively and we can speak of 'passive' building or 'passive house'. Passive House refers to a construction standard, that goes further then the low-energy house standard. Building in accordance with current building regulations in Ireland would achieve an equivalent value (at best) of 100kWh/m2/yr or 6 times the passive house standard.
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