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A Passive House is built to last a lifetime. It will benefit your family’s health, dramatically reduce your carbon footprint, protect you from the expense of rising energy costs, and add value to your property.
The Passive House Standard for construction is leading the way to a sustainable future.
Passive House – or Passivhaus – is an international building standard for producing high quality, sustainable structures with optimum energy efficiency and a minimal carbon footprint. There are no restrictions on size, style or budget.
Imagine living in a home that requires very little energy to maintain temperatures between 20-25ºC all year round, delivering a quiet, comfortable, healthy indoor environment in any climate. No more overheating in summer, or freezing cold draughts in winter. No need for fossil fuel reliant heating or power guzzling air conditioning units.
As well as the ongoing benefits of up to 90% savings on your energy bills, low energy use means you’re doing your bit to reduce greenhouse gases and lessen the demand on finite natural resources.
The simple heat exchange ventilation system in a Passive House provides a continuous supply of fresh filtered air, significantly reducing pollutants, minimising dust, mould and pollens. Around the world, people living in Passive Houses report health benefits such as less asthma, less allergies, less illness, and better sleep patterns.
Adopting sustainable construction methods is essential to reaching world targets for reducing carbon emissions. The fact that living in a Passive House offers so many additional benefits to its occupants makes it an easy choice.
Quality materials and a higher standard of construction means a Passive House is made to last. It will support your family’s health, dramatically reduce your carbon footprint, protect you from the expense of rising energy costs, and increase the value of your property.
certified assurance
Creating a Passive House requires the skills of a Certified Passive House Designer to resolve complex details and calculate building performance.
As Certified Passive House Designers, Atelier M&B will optimise your project design to meet the Passive House Standard and pass the strict tests for certification.
Atelier M&B will work with you to design a high-performance luxury home that reflects your vision and suits your lifestyle.
From the initial concept and design development right through to specifying compliant materials and supervising construction, we are involved in every part of the process to ensure the most important investment in your life is sustainable, safe and secure.
Let’s bring your sustainable dream home to life – call us now to find out how to get started.
let’s talk about your passive house
Airtightness is as beneficial in keeping heat out as keeping it in.
To avoid a build up of CO2 and other toxins, a mechanical ventilation system is required to ensure only fresh filtered air circulates through the home.
Airtightness is verified with pressurized and depressurized on-site blower door tests.
A standard building consists of unbroken elements like walls, roofs, ceilings, corners, and connections. Energy passes through these points more easily than other parts of the building. This phenomenon is known as thermal bridging.
A Passive House aims to eliminate points of heat loss using intelligent design and construction methods.
Mechanical Heat Recovery Ventilation (MHRV) continually draws filtered outdoor air into the home, and exhausts stale air and moisture from bathrooms and kitchens.
Outgoing air transfers energy to incoming air to deliver fresh, temperate air without needing to open a window.
MHRV is healthy and quiet, using very little energy moving relatively small volumes of air.
Windows are the biggest source of heat transfer in any building. In Passive Houses, loss and gain are reduced by high quality glass in double or triple glazing (depending on location).
The critical element is high quality insulated frames that seal tight. The average Passive House window will transmit just 1/6 of the heat of a typical Australian single glazed window.
High insulation is another crucial factor in controlling indoor temperatures, with the added benefit of reducing outdoor noise.
The amount of insulation varies depending on the climate zone. For example, a Sydney home would need more than a dwelling in Broome, and less than a house in Hobart.
Passive House is a voluntary sustainable International building standard for producing high quality structures with a minimal carbon footprint, designed to optimise energy efficiency for huge savings on power bills.
Buildings constructed to the Passive House standard use very little energy to maintain stable temperatures and humidity, delivering a quiet, comfortable and healthy indoor environment all year round.
Achievable on any budget, in any design style, this environmentally responsible building standard is fast becoming known as the world’s best.
The many documented lifestyle and health benefits of Passive House living include:
High-performance: energy efficiency offers a lifetime of savings
Low impact: sustainable materials, low CO2 emissions, minimised carbon footprint
Optimum comfort: your home is a quiet haven with stable temperatures and humidity all year round, no hot or cold draughts
Better health: a constant supply of clean filtered fresh air reduces dust, pollens and allergens
Added value: superior quality, made to last. Passive House certification also increases the value of your property
Mechanical Heat Recovery Ventilation (MHRV) continually draws filtered outdoor air into the home, and exhausts stale air and moisture from bathrooms and kitchens. Outgoing air transfers energy to incoming air to maintain stable temperatures and humidity regardless of outdoor weather conditions.
MHRV is healthy and quiet using very little energy moving relatively small volumes of air. Dust, pollens,and pollutants are filtered out to deliver fresh, temperate air without needing to open a window.
Of course you can. Windows are often opened to create cross ventilation cooling at night when outdoor temperatures cool down after a hot day.
With a heat recovery ventilation system delivering fresh air 24/7, there’s no longer any NEED to open windows.
A sealed envelope ensures optimum air quality by excluding outdoor irritants and pollutants, and maintains consistent temperatures and humidity to keep you comfortable regardless of the weather.
You’ll easily adapt to a new sense of living once you experience the benefits of being the proud owner of a Passive House luxury home
Passive House provides continuous thermal comfort using very little energy, saving you up to 90% on energy bills – for life!
This is achieved with five key elements:
– airtight construction
– thermal bridge free design
– heat recovery ventilation
– high-performance windows
– continuous insulation
Your initial investment in high-performance materials and superior construction methods is offset by massive ongoing power savings.
Originally designed for the cold temperate climates of Europe the Passive House standard is versatile and can be adapted to any climate.
The concept of providing stable indoor temperatures and humidity remains the same regardless of location.
Most of us in Australia live in a warm temperature climate, which requires less insulation, but it can also be adapted to the warm climates and hot climates of the north of Australia.
Passive House has a retrofit standard called EnerPHit. Buildings can be contemporary, traditional and even historical or Heritage listed, each with its own challenges and possibilities.
There are two options for retrofitting existing buildings. One is to use the step by step process. The more cost effective, time saving and less complex option is to do all the works in one go.
There are no restrictions on size or design style for your Passive House.
A more compact dwelling offers the most energy efficiency, but as Passive House designers we have strategies for achieving the standard on projects of any size. It really comes down to your budget.
Ultimately the design must reflect your lifestyle and we will work with you to achieve your vision, ensuring it meets the stringent high performance conditions of Passive House certification.