Designing family homes to Passivhaus standards could be the most effective approach for social housing developers to reach the energy standard of level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes when tackling fuel poverty, according to new research published by sustainability consultancy Inbuilt.

Code level 4 is a lower carbon housing standard required on some social housing projects already and is due to become the minimum standard for all new publicly-funded housing by 2011. However, Inbuilt's research shows that a Passivhaus can have a space heating requirement 90% lower than a home of the same dimensions built to Code level 4.

Paul Smyth, a Passivhaus Consultant at Inbuilt, said: "Our research shows that lower carbon homes do not necessarily mean lower heating bills for the occupants. This is a critical issue given the growing problems of fuel poverty in the UK. Genuine sustainability includes economic sustainability - we need to be thinking about much more than low or zero carbon. Our findings suggest that Passivhaus potentially makes an ideal standard to aim for if we are building homes for fuel-poor families."

-- Advertisement --

Inbuilt's technical team carried out extensive modelling of two house types with more than 70 different permutations of floor sizes, locations and heating systems using the Passivhaus Planning Package (PHPP) and SAP software. They found that it is possible to design a family home which meets the Passivhaus standard, does not require a conventional heating system or any sort of 'bolt on' electricity generation such as PV panels, and achieves a Dwelling Emissions Rate (DER) which complies with Code level 4.

Mr Smyth said: "Passivhaus helps to reduce fuel bills and it also ticks all the regulatory boxes for carbon saving. Once a dwelling complies with Passivhaus its heat loss is so low, and associated carbon emissions so few, that compliance with Code level 4 becomes significantly easier to achieve, and in many cases it can even be achieved automatically."

Inbuilt warned that Passivhaus design must be considered from the outset of planning any new homes development and cannot be chased once site layouts, orientation and home designs have already been fixed.

(CD/JM)