Passive houses and how our school saves energy

Passive houses and how our school saves energy

Passive house

A passive house is a building design standard that prioritizes energy efficiency and comfort. It can cover heat and cooling requirements passively, instead of being reliant on active usage of those. The goal of a passive house is to drastically reduce energy consumption, which why it can reduce up to 90% of heating and cooling energy compared to conventional buildings.

The main features of a passive house are:

1.       Superinsulation: The building envelope, including walls, roofs, and floors, is highly insulated to minimize heat loss and heat gain.

2.       Airtightness: The building is constructed to be airtight, preventing air leakage and minimizing drafts. This helps maintain a consistent indoor temperature and reduces the need for heating or cooling.

3.       High-performing windows and doors: Energy-efficient windows and doors with multiple panes and low-emissivity coating are used to minimize heat transfer.

4.       Heat recovery ventilation: A mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery is installed to supply fresh air while recovering the heat from the exhaust air. This helps maintain indoor air quality and further reduces energy demands.

5.       Passive solar design: The building is designed to take advantage of solar energy for heating and natural light. Large windows on the south side of the building capture sunlight, while shading devices prevent overheating during the summer.

It’s important to note that while passive house prioritizes energy efficiency, they do not necessarily generate all the energy they need. Renewable energy systems, such as solar panels or windmills, can be added to further reduce the carbon footprint.

Our school

Our school building is also a passive house. We have plenty of solar panels on our roof, that sadly don’t belong to us. The energy created from those solar panels is being used by another company. But our school director already planned on installing solar panels on our newly build cafeteria. Furthermore, our school doesn’t have any air conditioning, besides for the server room, but we use ventilation every four hours to get fresh air into every single room. Besides the ventilation we use Wood chips or Pellets to heat up not only our school, but our neighbor school as well. Wood chips are cheaper, burn a lot quicker and they create a lot of dust. Pellets are more expensive but burn a lot longer than wood chips. The heater did overheat a few times already, therefore safety measures had to be invented. For example, when the heater overheated, a lot of water got pumped into the heater which overflowed the whole room.