Scottish Passive House: Insights into Environmental Conditions in Monitored Passive Houses

Janice Foster,Anna Poston,Chris Morgan,Filbert Musau,Tim Sharpe

doi:10.3390/su8050412

Janice Foster, Anna Poston + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su8050412

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Abstract

Climate change and sustainability legislation in recent years has led to significant changes in construction approaches in the UK housing sector. This has resulted in the adoption of new building typologies, including the German Passivhaus (Passive House) standard. This standard aims to improve occupant comfort and energy efficiency, potentially changing the ways in which homes operate and how occupants interact with them. With increasing construction of low energy dwellings, there is an emerging gap in knowledge in relation to occupant health and wellbeing, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality (IAQ). Using data collected from a two year Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) study funded by Innovate UK, the environmental data (temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentrations) from five Certified Passive House homes in Scotland was compared. The results demonstrate problems with overheating with peak temperatures exceeding 30 °C. Imbalanced mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) systems were identified in 80% of the dwellings and inadequate IAQ was found due to poor ventilation. Only one of the Passive Houses studied exhibited thermal conditions and IAQ which were, on the whole within Passive House parameters. This paper outlines the insights and the main issues of Scottish Passive House in the broader context of sustainability.

Highlights

As a response to the Bruntland Report in 1987 [1] and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 [2], there has been increasing legislation for sustainable development, that attempts to minimise the effects of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions [3,4,5] from a range of sectors
The shift to near Zero Carbon Buildings in Scotland outlined by the Sullivan Report [10], and the rapid transition to “Zero Carbon Homes” (ZCH) by 2016 previously proposed by the UK Government in 2006 [7] (p. 168) led to increased adoption of energy efficient construction legislation and standards for UK housing
The internal temperature data collected from the five Passive House dwellings was analysed to compare the mean internal temperature against the Passive House design temperature of 20 ̋C and to determine the extent of time the internal temperature exceeded 25 ̋C

Summary

Introduction

As a response to the Bruntland Report in 1987 [1] and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 [2], there has been increasing legislation for sustainable development, that attempts to minimise the effects of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions [3,4,5] from a range of sectors. 168) led to increased adoption of energy efficient construction legislation and standards for UK housing This included revisions to the Building (Scotland) Regulations: Section 6 [11] (English Building Regulations: Part L1A [12]) and the development of the Code for Sustainable Homes with its hierarchical levels of environmental performance [13]. The impact of these changes resulted in a “wave of pioneering innovation” in the construction industry [9] The latter has led to an increase in the installation of domestic Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) systems [14] (p. 4)

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