what is passivhaus?

what is passivhaus?

it's a low energy standard

it's a low energy standard

PassivHaus is a voluntary building standard developed in Germany and now commonly used all over northern Europe. There are six main rules to building a PassivHaus. These rules ensure the building has very low energy and heating requirements, 90% lower than an average house.

  • Super Insulation - ensuring excellent heat retention within the building
  • Excellent draught proofing - the house has so few gaps and holes that almost no air can enter the building other than through the carefully controlled heat recovery ventilation system
  • Passive solar gain - carefully placed windows mean the sun will warm the building naturally
  • Ventilation with heat recovery - this allows you to capture all the heat usually lost from uncontrolled air leakage
  • Low energy appliances - the most energy efficient appliances can dramatically help you reduce your energy consumption
  • Renewable energy sources - using solar PV and thermal, wind or other renewable sources allows you to be even more energy independent

Visit our ecohome blog to find out more about one of our passivhaus retrofits.

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Flying is ok because aviation only produces a few percent of global CO2 emissions.

Truth: Globally, it is true... read more

Flying is ok because aviation only produces a few percent of global CO2 emissions.


Truth: Globally, it is true that aviation does not produce more than a few percent of CO2. However if you take a single intercontinental flight every year, this is likely to dominate your own personal CO2 emissions.
More importantly, emitting the gas high up in the atmosphere means that the global warming effect of every tonne of CO2 emitted by a plane is 2-4 times worse than that of the same tonne emitted on the ground!
Another problem is the speed of growth of the aviation industry: between 1990 and 2001, UK passenger numbers increased by 73%. Over the same period, average fuel consumption per passenger per kilometre travelled actually increased by 12%!  In 2008, aviation was responsible for 23% of transport fuel use in the UK.