Passivhaus is a particular type of building construction that provides optimum comfort both in summer and in winter. It also provides air tightness, good thermal performance and mechanical ventilation. It reduces the amount for heating demand. A Passivhaus design includes:
- Excellent levels of insulation with very little amount of thermal bridges
- Good levels of air tightness
- A mechanical ventilation to allow a high quality of indoor air
- Internal heat sources and passive solar gains
The Code for Sustainable Homes, which was introduced in 2007, is a national standard for sustainable design and the construction of new domestic buildings. This Code accounts the whole home as a complete package, evaluating its sustainability against nine categories as follows:
- Energy/Carbon Dioxide
- Water
- Materials
- Surface water run-off
- Waste
- Pollution
- Health and well-being
- Management
- Ecology
A 1 to 6 star rating system is used (one which is the lowest, six the highest) to place a minimum level for water and energy.
Therefore, it can be seen that both of these have different aims- The Passivhaus deals mostly with energy requirement for space heating whereas the Code sets out a wider scale of environmental standards.
Passivhaus is a particular type of building construction that provides optimum comfort both in summer and in winter. It also provides air tightness, good thermal performance and mechanical ventilation. It reduces the amount for heating demand. A Passivhaus design includes:
- Excellent levels of insulation with very little amount of thermal bridges
- Good levels of air tightness
- A mechanical ventilation to allow a high quality of indoor air
- Internal heat sources and passive solar gains
The Cod...
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...htness
- A mechanical ventilation to allow a high quality of indoor air
- Internal heat sources and passive solar gains
The Code for Sustainable Homes, which was introduced in 2007, is a national standard for sustainable design and the construction of new domestic buildings. This Code accounts the whole home as a complete package, evaluating its sustainability against nine categories as follows:
- Energy/Carbon Dioxide
- Water
- Materials
- Surface water run-off
- Waste
- Pollution
- Health and well-being
- Management
- Ecology
A 1 to 6 star rating system is used (one which is the lowest, six the highest) to place a minimum level for water and energy.
Therefore, it can be seen that both of these have different aims- The Passivhaus deals mostly with energy requirement for space heating whereas the Code sets out a wider scale of environmental standards.
Whether dealing with any building certain services need to be considered at the design stage to enable occupiers have reasonable conditions and a comfortable working environment. HVAC systems (heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems) are used to provide buildings with ‘conditioned air’ which is odourless and fresh, as well as ensuring the temperature, humidity and flow of the air is within a certain comfort range appealing to the occupiers. Figure 1 on page 5 is a diagram which explains a basic design process when designing a heating or ventilation system for a building.
A building envelope is considered as a physical separator between the unconditioned and conditioned environment of a building including the resistance to heat, light, air, water, and last but not leat noise transfer. The building envelope is aay of climate control to all of the elements of the outer shell that maintain a dry, heated, or cooled indoor environment. Architectural and engineering try to use building envelope design to draw from all areas of building science till indoor climate control. [4] Protection the covered or otherwise conditioned interior spaces from the surrounding environmentis the basic function of the envelope or enclosure of a building or structure. However, as our needs have evolved and also technologies have advanced, the demand placed on architects to both understand, and integrate, a huge range of increasingly complex components, materials, and systems into the building enclosure has increased in equal proportion. This is particularly true when one thinks and considers the emerging threat of terrorism and the effect of that threat on the design and construction of the building envelope. However, despite the recent emphasis on hardening of the building enclosure blast-resistant wall systems and , uncontrolled rainwater penetration and moisture ingress
During winter season green roofs reduces heat loss, this will minimize the use of heaters. The building design prevents the water from leaking into the building, since the green roof will absorb the rainwater, therefore this will lower the cost of maintenance and also bring about comfort inside the building. The insulation controls the heat and also store it and release it at night to make the building warm, this will reduce costs since air conditioners and heaters will not be used regularly. This will also contribute in lowering the cost. According to (Bianchini & Hewage, 2012 p52), Green Roofs can also be extensive and intensive depending on their motives and features. Intensive roofs needs constant maintenance, while extensive roofs are self-sustaining and also require low maintenance. All the installations, construction duration, and maintenance depend on the type of green
The definition of Sustainability in the Merriam Webster Dictionary is simply ‘involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources (Merriam Webster, 2014)’. In design we consider sustainability in two different ways:
Ventilation is a process of conducting an adequate flow of pure, fresh air along airways, working places and severe points underground, ventilation broadly focuses on providing fresh adequate air to the workings. Its main aims is to also displace and dilute the concentration of toxic gases and of airborne dust do acceptable levels for workers underground, it is efficient up to certain levels ( 600m -800m) beyond this we have to implement other cooling strategies. Refrigeration is defined as the process of removing heat from an enclosed space or from a substance for the purpose of lowering the temperature. Refrigeration focuses on bringing down the temperature to acceptable levels that are
There is an urging need for buildings to become more eco friendly and aware about the worlds environment. The case studies show that with a little extra effort, it can be achieve and can have huge impacts on the environment.
In theory, the concept of the Green Deal seems perfect. The homes in Britain are considered ‘draughty’ and by implementing energy-saving techniques such as insulation, draught proofing, double-glazing these homes can become more energy effici...
The following series of articles help define what sustainable strategies work best for the exterior façade of a building. These first two articles deal with double-skin façade systems. The systems and ideas they discuss will be the same idea I will cover in the paper. The first article deals with the openness between exterior spaces and interior spaces in buildings. It explains the use of double skin façade. The smart façade unit was installed at the college of architecture building in Georgia institute of technology as a study model. There are three important elements for using the double-skin system: energy use, visual comfort, and thermal comfort.
The methodology of Sustainable design is to trim down harmful impacts on the environment, further more it would be developed the health and ease of building occupants, thus improving building performance. The core objectives of sustainability are to decrease expenditure of non-renewable resources, cut down the amount of waste, and create a good physical shape, prolific atmosphere.
From perspectives of environment, insulation is the most cost effective way of reducing energy consumption and also can help to protect environment. As thermal insulation system maintains the temperature in rooms, it controls thermal energy loss or gain depending on different seasons; the demands of using air conditioners or fireplaces are reduced. In summer, citizens can hold patience to against sweltering hot weather without air conditioners, and in winter there is no need to burn wood or coal while a thick coat can solve all problems. As a result, the greenhouse gases emission is reduced as the amount of fuel burnt to produce electricity keeps falling. Furthermore, insulation reduces average home heating and cooling costs so the burden of increasing energy can be afforded. As the right insulation is a once-only cost that lasts for the life of the building and requires no further
Household energy conservation is a very practical and realistic approach to conserving energy within our society. US households consume a tremendous amount of natural gas as well as electric energy. It has been calculated that the amount of energy consumed within the US increased exponentially from about 1850 to 1975. If energy continued to increase at this rate, we would be experiencing severe energy shortages in our current society. Luckily, steps towards conservation, including various energy regulations, have curbed that growth somewhat, brining the predicted 160 Qbtu/yr for the year 2000 down to around 93.8 Qbtu/yr by the year 1996. However, household energy usage is still a major issue as households consume about 38% of the total consumed energy and contribute greatly to natural gas consumption and issues such as global warming. Therefore, it is important that people understand how we use energy in the household and what steps can be taken to conserve that energy.
Despite the fact that novel technologies are continuously under development to complement existing practices in coming up with greener buildings, the universal intent is that such structures are designed to diminish the general effect on the built environment on health of the humans in addition to the natural environment via: Diminishing environmental degradation, pollution and waste, improving productivity of the employee and guarding occupant health, efficient usage of water, energy, in addition to other resources.
There are some houses called earth houses over the world which is based on this idea and maximises the potential sustainability. Earth houses, sometimes known as earth berms or earth sheltered home is an architectural sty...
Provide the needed amount of air exchange: The system should be able to provide enough outdoor air to maintain indoor air quality. It must be capable of modulating delivery, so that it may not deliver more than what is required. If it delivers more outdoor air than what is required, then it is likely to have excess energy costs and low humidity which annoys the
...ignificant savings in energy costs. Additionally, the environmental benefits are beneficial to the owners and users of the project. Inhabitants will reap the benefits of improved health, thanks to efficient circulation, air, and HVAC systems. The lower overall operating costs offset the significant up-front costs of the project.