Working group II: News on Passive House Ventilation

Excellent air replacement is an indispensable precondition for a healthy indoor climate. Thanks to the ongoing progress in building technologies, new and modernised buildings have become more and more airtight. This is a positive development as has been discussed on previous conferences on Passive Houses (link). Simple air change through gaps is not sufficient any longer to achieve proper hygienic living conditions. And airchange by opening windows and doors on behalf of the occupants is neither a reliable method nor energy efficient. In Passive Houses and modernised buldings using Passive House elements excellent indoor air quality has to be achieved. To do this in a reliable and energy efficient way, ventilation systems using heat recovery are needed. A Passive House is almost equivalent to “the highly insulated residential building with highly efficient air ventilation” (link). As ventilation is at the core of the whole Passive House concept, working group no. II is explicitly dealing with “Passive House ventilation”.

Andreas Bόhring is opening with a report on “State of the art of further developments on compact HVAC units”. In particular results of compact units using a new brine-soil absorber (“geothermal”) as the main energy source are being presented.

“Innovative Ventilation Appliances with AirSwitcher- First Experiences and Implementation in Practice” is the titel of Rolf-Peter Strauί’s lecture. The concept of balance control has for the first time been introduced at the last conference on Passive Houses. On the basis of continued works it will be shown how results can be guaranteed and what limitations are to be expected.

Balance Control for use in home ventilation systems (Rolf Peter Strauß, 9th Conf. on Passive Houses)

Rudi Kriesi is one of the most important initiators of energy efficient building construction in Switzerland, as well as founder of the “Minergie standard” and committed advocate of hygenically excellent ventilation. As dry air has sometimes been somewhat problematic, new solutions had to be found. One solution is going to be presented in the lecture ”Enthalpy-Plate Exchanger - Further Improvement of Indoor Comfort”.

“Central or Decentral Heat Supply in Multifamily Passive Houses – Results of Energetic Analysis” is the topic of Christel Russ in working group no. II. By reducing distribution losses with thorough installation and positioning within the thermal envelope, the efficiency of centralised supply in Passive Houses can be improved. Alternatives can be decentralised systems of supply such as compact ventilation units. In combination with thermal solar systems storage losses can be compensated.

Thomas Schneider is presenting innovative systems for de-frosting heat exchangers and for balance regulation: ”Innovations on Antifreeze and Balance Control in Ventilation Systems”.

The contributions of working group no.II show the innovative incentive that is emanating from the Passive House concept. In a Passive House highly efficient ventilation comes to its own. Antifreeze and balance control ask for simple but reliable and at the same time energy efficient solutions. It is evident to use a combination of ventilation and heat supply in Passive Houses. All these different areas are progressing and we will find out more about the progress made on the conference.

Time schedule of the 10^th International Conference on Passive Houses in Hannover

2006 February 1st:    Notification on acceptance of abstracts (done)
2006 March 31st (elongated):   Registration period for reduced fee ends
2006 March 15th:       Deadline for the written contributions of the preceedings

2006 May 19th and 20th   10. Conference on Passive Houses HCC Hannover with Exhibition on Passive House Components and manufacturers session

May 21st field trip to the most interesting Passive House projects and construction sites incl. refurbishment in the region near Hannover.

(updated:2006-02-26   © Passivhouse Institute PHI; this page might be reprinted if unchanged)

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Passive House Institute, Dr. Wolfgang Feist. mail@passiv.de.

.2006-02-17
Programme of the 10th International Conference on Passive Houses
PDF 89 kB (short version)

.2006-03-09
Full Programme of the 10th International Conference on Passive Houses
PDF 489 kB (full version, Englisch )