Week 11 - Passivhaus Design Blog

  Passive Design

Heat Gains
  • Solar Heat Gain is the heat energy we get from the sun which will enter our homes through the windows.
  • Internal heat gains is the heat we gain from things inside the home like body heat, cooking, anything at all within the building that produces heat, including small amounts like from a hair dryer for example.
Heat Losses
  • Heat is lost from the building through conduction through the buildings external surfaces, known as transmission losses, which we calculated previously in our U-Values.
  • The other way it is lost is through air, the air inside is heated and when we lose this hot air we lose the heat, this can be lost through ventilation.
Our Goal is to achieve a balance between these Gains and losses, like seen below.


Space Heat Demand
  • In the above image you can see in order to bring the building into balance an additional source of heat is required, demonstrated by the radiator.
  • This additional heat requirement is referred to as our space heat demand.
  • To meet passivhaus standards you are only allowed to add 15kW/m²a.
Below is my calculations to determine what my space heat demand was:




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