We recently attended the Passive House conference in Illinois. Passive House refers to a rigorous but voluntary standard for super energy efficient buildings.  The standard focuses on “passive solar design” (i.e. balancing solar energy gains and losses), super-insulation, advanced window technology, air tightness, and ventilation.

The increasingly popular Passive House design, referred to as  Passivhaus in German, was pioneered in Germany and Austria, with more than 15,000 passive houses and other large buildings already built. The design does not need to be complex, but it does involve knowledge of heat loss by conduction and air leakage through the building.  The results are a home (or building) with high insulation values, extremely high performing windows, and strict airtight requirements.  According to an article in The New York Times last year, a passive home uses approximately one-twentieth the heating energy of a home roughly the same size.

Choosing the windows in Passive House design impacts the overall building performance.  Windows in a Passive House should be highly efficient with super insulating frames and glazings that are “tuned” to the climate.  Choosing glazings that maximize solar gain in the winter and minimize it in the summer can effectively achieve these goals.  Super tight windows with tested (ATI) air and water infiltration numbers as low as possible are also ideal in Passive House design.

For the First Carbon Neutral Urban Homestead in the US, the Nauhaus Institute (NHI) has designed the Nauhaus Prototype (NHP), an ambitious project that includes passive solar and super insulation technology which meets Passive House Institute US (PHIUS) standards, and uses uheat exchange ventilation, locally sourced materials, on-site renewable energy production, and edible landscapes, food production and animal habitat.

A key component of the NHP is the inclusion of SeriousWindows 925 super insulating, fiberglass framed casement and awning windows, and fiberglass framed doors.

Clarke Snell, Executive Director of the Nauhaus Institute, said, “We selected SeriousWindows from Serious Materials because they were the only US manufacturer that we could find that could allow us to reach the high-performance specifications required for Passive Haus certification. Not only can they meet the spec but they look great.”

A recent blog post by Loadingdock5 Architecture discusses the hunt for the right passive house window.

Serious Materials manufactures highly efficient, high performance, cost effective windows that meet the strict Passive House requirements. SeriousWindows fiberglass windows exceed competitive offerings by:
• Meeting stringent Passive House air infiltration requirements
• Delivering full-frame R-values from R 4.5 to R 11.1
• Advanced warm-edge spacer system
• Revolutionary suspended coated film glass packages

More information about Serious Materials, SeriousWindows and Passive House design can be found here.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Announcements, SeriousWindows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.