UK news - passivehouseplus.ie

A comparison between two pairs of households in Switzerland suggests that people do not reliably compensate for lack of mechanical ventilation with more window opening.

A new analysis of the exposure of London households to indoor pollutants highlights “systematic inequalities” in exposure, overwhelmingly driven by factors beyond the control of those people worst affected.

The winners of the international Passive House Award will be announced on Friday 10 September as part of the 25th International Passive House Conference, which is fully available online. Tickets to the conference are still available.

While the Irish government is delivering CO2 monitors to schools to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, and some European regions have mandated the use of such monitors in all buildings open to the public, the UK has yet to introduce such measures and has removed the requirement for mask-wearing in schools.

The redevelopment of Agar Grove by Camden Council in London was the winner of the large project award at this year’s UK Passivhaus Awards, which were held on 30 June.

Passive House Plus editor Jeff Colley will be speaking at the TEDx Tralee event on 15 October.

South West College’s new Erne Campus building in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, is the world’s largest, and the first educational building, to be certified to the passive house premium standard, the Passive House Institute has confirmed.

A detailed analysis of the embodied carbon of six common build types has indicated that dwellings built with business-as-usual build specs of cavity wall construction and strip foundations may be able to meet the revised embodied carbon targets for dwellings in RIBA’s 2030 Climate Challenge.

The passive house standard is celebrating its 30th birthday this year. The world’s first passive houses were built in Darmstadt, Germany in 1991.

On June 8, 2021 Passive House Plus, in association with Farrat, chaired a hugely informative roundtable on thermal breaks. If you missed it, the video can now be viewed online.

Denmark is set to introduce embodied carbon targets into the country’s building regulations, a policy which has been backed with cross-parliamentary support.

The Association for Environment Conscious Building has announced the launch of the new AECB Retrofit Standard, which like its AECB Building Standard, is based on the passive house standard and designed to promote a whole-house, fabric first approach.

Leading environmental and green building charities have criticised the government’s lack of ambition on retrofit, upskilling and a green economic recovery in its latest budget.

Residential retrofits must ensure ventilation is carefully considered in order to avoid an increase in radon gas levels, researchers at NUI Galway in Ireland have found.

Plans for over 33,000 net zero carbon new homes are underway across the UK, Passive House Plus can reveal.

The UK's net-zero carbon target for all homes by 2050 is unlikely to be met without a major overhaul of the current energy certification system, MPs have warned.

Industry-leading mechanical ventilation company BEAM Vacuum & Ventilation has launched a new mobile phone app for their award-winning, next generation HERU heat recovery ventilation range.

The second edition of the book Understanding Passivhaus by Emma Walshaw of First In Architecture is out now. The book is designed to provide a brief, clear and complete guide to building a passive home.

NI still plans to tighten energy rules for new build

Before it was halted until January 2021, the Grenfell Tower inquiry heard a series of damning testimonies on the culture towards fire safety within leading building material manufacturers and certification bodies in the years leading up to the fire.

The Welsh government is set to introduce a new section of building regulations to deal with mitigating overheating risk, Part S.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) envisages loft insulation and air source heat pumps as being among the primary tools to reduce the carbon footprint of existing buildings, in its newly published landmark plan for how the UK can move towards becoming a net zero carbon nation by 2050.

Ventilation will be an essential requirement of insulation retrofits under the UK government’s new £1.5 billion Green Homes Grant voucher scheme, Passive House Plus can reveal.

RIBA has published a report urging the government, local authorities and the wider construction sector to adopt post-occupancy evaluation as standard practice to ensure all new buildings meet intended energy efficiency ratings and provide optimum value for money.

The NHS has given the go ahead for its first passive house building. The new Foleshill health centre in Coventry is designed by Tooley & Foster Partnership. Patients and doctors at Foleshill are currently using a temporary building situated in a carpark.

ABK Architects has received planning permission for 597 homes at Shanganagh, Co Dublin, the overwhelming majority of which will be passive houses. The project has been developed in partnership with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and the Land Development Agency.

CO² levels in rooms and other enclosed spaces should be used as a proxy for Covid transmission risk, a number of leading experts have said, as the evidence increasingly points towards airborne transmission being a major factor in the spread of the virus.

The digital edition of Passive House Plus has seen a significant increase in readership during the Covid-19 crisis, in addition to the magazine’s market-leading print circulation.

A new campaign is aiming to encourage more sustainable property refurbishment through tax incentives for people to adopt passive, or near passive, building standards.

Advice also calls for upskilling for retrofit & low carbon heating