guided tour (EN)

1 LOSS OF ENERGY

2 AIR MANAGEMENT

3 SOLAR ENERGY

4 MATERIALS

5 COMFORT

6 ELEC & H2O

7 ECO DISIGN

guided tour

Guided Tour
A passive house is a building in which a comfortable interior climate can be maintained without active heating and cooling systems (Adamson 1987 and Feist 1988) The house heats and cools itself, hence "passive".
A passive house is cost-effective when the combined capitalized costs (construction, including design and installed equipment, plus operating costs for 10 years) do not exceed those of an average new home. Into 10 years we will pay each month 10€* for electricity and 5€* for heating (*not indexed)
Visitors from Groningen till Bordeaux camesince 2005 visiting our house. The house has been certified as a "passive house" by the Belgian Passiefhuisplatform after controlling the calculations (PHPP Benelux), the technical construction plans and a blower door test (0,47)
In links you ‘ll find some of our favourite links about the related topic.
We hope you enjoy your visit and can appreciate our efforts to realise this Guided Tour. We are glad to share our knowledge and experience with you.

Katrien, Lien & Frédéric
bio-ecologic & passive house Ename www.biopassive.be
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1 REDUCE THE LOSS OF ENERGY

You don’t heat a house, you compensate the loss of energy. A classic house loose about 300 kwh/m2 that has to be compensate by active heating. A passive house loose less than 15kwh/m2.
GOOD ISOLATION
40cm in stead of 4cm wall isolation to achieve a U-factor less than 0.15 W/m2K.
On the north side you don't see almost any window, as there is no passive energy to gain. Triple glass 0.6 and isolated wood. But this is 6 times less thermal isolating than a wall( 0,14.)
LIMIT EXTERNAL SURFACE : compact & small
Compact house: The PH Ename has a compact form of 1m3/5.5m2, even les than a cube witch has 1m3/6m2. Inventive creativity was needed to cope with the buildings restrictions: roof at max 4m height : that’s why the wooden construction in the front, so a complete first floor was possible.
Small house: The inner surface is 110m2, the half of most sustainable houses (200m2) meanwhile the living room remains 40m2 and 2 bathrooms. (Smaller means only 100x 1,5Kwh/m2 in stead of 200x and les building material is needed at the construction.
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2 AIR CIRCULATION MANAGEMENT

AIRTIGHNESS
To manage the air circulation you need to have control over the in, out and flow. Leaks are therefore not allowed, they also mean a loss of energy as the air coming in or leaving the house by those leaks means they don’t pass the heat exchanger. The house must have fully air tightness (blower door test: 0,47) and then controlled ventilation can be installed.
VENTILLATION
The exhausted air is coming out at the side of the house, in the car-port (future). At the end of the garden you see the black pipe of the passive earth-air heat exchanger that enters the house after 30m.
A highly efficient air-air heat exchanger recovers 90% of the exhaust air. This still means a loss of 10% or for every 10 air-refreshments, 1 has to be heated so right dimension of the installation is very useful. If a to high ventilation is installed, the air will be dry and uncomfortable. Damp open walls (eg clay) and plants can help therefore. Plants not only prevent dry air in the winter but they are also indoor green/bio air filters reducing the amount of toxic particles in the indoor air. ( Remark: choosing natural building materials will reduce the release of toxic particles in the air)
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3 SOLAR ENERGY
The house is build to enjoy and maximise the benefit of the sun.
SOUTHERN ORIENTATION & SHADE CONSIDERATION
On the south side of the house there is a 25m2 window for passive solar heating in the winter. In summer a store is placed from above the windows till the inox 'goal'
PASSIVE THERMAL ENERGY
On the roof the thermal heating system of 8m2 is connected with a boiler of 450L. Normally 4m2 and 200L is installed, but this (over)sized installation gives the possibility to reduce the winter (active heating) season to 4 months (15/11-15/3)
Normally you need 200L at 80°C so that everyone can take a shower, with 400L you'll only need 40°C so that the 4th person also has a comfortable water temperature.
RENEWABLE THERMAL ENERGY
beside the windows and the roof, the trees in the garden capture the solar energy and transform CO2 in wood.Wood for woodpellets in the winter. Our renewable energy for the hot water supply when the sun does not shine : last winter 425kg pellets (85€/y or 7€/m) , this winter 300kg (60€/y or 5€/m). This is about 25x less than a classic house, witch uses about 25.000 kwh natural gas or 2000L petrol, (1900€/y or 160€/m). Using renewable energy sources means beingCO2 neutral. Threes are therefore plant in the garden and in an active participation in the protection of the natural reserve the Forest of Ename having a high biodiversity. Pellets must be of good quality to avoid frequent cleaning of firestove
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4 RENEWABLE MATERIALS

(ECO)LOGIC MATERIALS
The house is build with many renewable materials (fsc wood, cellulose, straw, clay, bird-feathers, cork, coir(the fibre from the husk of the coconut), … The use othose natural materials demands less energy to produce and transform than other building materials used in classic constructions. the ecologic footprint is small.
They are also healthier as they are not releasing toxic gases or radioactivity. A dampopen construction is also better for the regulation of the humidity in the indoor air, as to dry air causses discomfort and ilness.
RECUPERATION & WAIST TREATMENT
Waist treatment is easy as all organic buildingmaterials are biodegradable. Wood can bee recuperated (eg the chelter for the chickens) or can be used for fire.
Chickens will be used for green waist (more than 50% of a household’s waist) nowadays its being composted, but the advantage will we the eggs.
Rainwater is collected for toilet, laundry (need less soap) plants & garden. The waist water has to be connected tot the city system of Aquafin. Purifying the water and adding it then to the waist water of the neighbours would be stupid. Aquafin has a large scale purifying site in Oudenaarde.
Some trees will give fruit and capture the CO2 (from the wood pellets)
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5 COMFORT
HEALTH & COMFORT
There is an important focus on the quality and comfort of the indoor environment as it has an important impact on wellbeing. Problems with the quality of indoor environment, and in particular with the indoor air, are having an increasing impact on health, mainly on respiratory and skin illnesses, allergies and chronic diseases, including cancer. (plants inside !)
The comfort in the house is high. Everywhere it ‘s about 21°C. when the sun shines it’s also a lovely day inside. The pellet fire gives the wanted ‘open fire experience’
INTERNAL HEAT SOURCES
The way of living (eg being home or not) has an sesible impact on the temperature. Every person produces about 80W, so we produce about 1500W together, the exact amount we need (that’s why you're all welcome in the winter). Remember the T° in your house at Christmas with family & cooking the turkey. Remember offices where mainly active cooling is needed because all the electric applicants are producing lots of heat. Those are examples of intern heat sources. If the internal heat sources are not enofght, a heating battery connected tot the boiler supplies the needed energy.
In a normal house those intern heat sources produces only 2 % of the needed thermal energy to keep it comfortable, in a passive house their impact is about 50%
A classic house needs 300kwh/m2 our house needs 15kw/m2
Using two 75W lamps will be enough to heat a 20m2 space in a passive house
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6 ELECTRICITY & H2O
ELECTRICITY
A classic household uses about 3500kwh/y (40€/m) . 99% is produced with coal or uranium.
Our electricity consumption is equal as their 'stand by' consumption. (10€/m) This due to the use of energy saving household applicants as a hot fill laundry, AAA-fridge, induction-cooking, LED & energy saving lamps where the lights burns longer than half hour/day. The little red light of PC or televison+VCR uses each 30€/y stand-by (eg feel the hot transfo = stand by energy consumption)
Te 100% renewable energy is produced by our wind energy cooperative. Shareholders receive a dividend of 6%. Producing in cooperative is more efficient (cheaper) than individual eg farmers- & wine-cooperatives . Our house is virtually a 0-energy house, at least CO2-neutral.
H2O
The use of water is small. Last year we used 15m3 with 3. Less water means ofthen less hot water, less (therma)l energy.
Normally 176m3/y is used by 4 persons. Using saving bottons at toilet and shower will reduce this amount up to 118m3. The half can be replaced by rainwater: 59m3. this is about what our roof collects. In Flanders each habitant receive 15m3, or 60m3 for 4. So our water is free.
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7 ECO DESIGN

BEST AFFORTABLE TECHNOLOGY
There is a product/project oriented focus looking to the whole Life Cycle Achievement (LCA), products/concepts with the same comfort, but are using less material and energy
Using the Best Available Technology (BAT) with no possible cost-effective more efficient alternative to reduce energy-consumption and develop concepts (eco-design). The investment Return Rate (IRR) is less than 8 years.
The aim is to keep the ecological footprint as low as possible (0-energy/CO2-neutral) overall the house reflects the state of the art and the concept is easy (affordable) to disseminate costing approx. 100.000 excl VAT (1000h own work)
The first step to achieve this is to choose a indipendent reliable architect with facination for ecologic building materials and/or low energy building concepts who will guide you and the bulding during the whole proces.
INDEPENDED ADVICE
Every 1 € you spend on advice means 100€ less you’ve got too spent on materials and workforce. Get well and objective informed! Look favourite links for advice.
Afther each Open House Day we recieve requests to have our indipendend experience advice for individual projects/plans. As advice is verry important and lots of monny can be saved (1€ to 100€) we are fulfilling this wishes, with positive feedback. In 1,5h lots of ideas have been exchanged and you can feel to experience the plesant indoor climate and comfort. The best time to feel the effect of the sun is in the afternoon. We ask the half of groupvisits (25€/h) moor info on bezoek&advies (NL) and visite&advis (Fr)