Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition |
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Posted By: Jeff BVery interesting article.It's good to see some coverage and especially of the value of certification. They're wrong to say you get a plaque in the price though; that's an add-on you pay for (I think we paid Ă‚ÂŁ90).
Posted By: fostertom"... based on anecdotal evidence ... expect a Passivhaus to sell for between 5% and 10% more than a similar property built to normal energy efficiency standards.
Posted By: Jeff B
It seems crazy that it only costs 5% to 10% more to build a PH house compared to a "normal" property and yet how few of the former there are. If only I had my time over......http:///newforum/extensions/Vanillacons/smilies/standard/wink.gif" alt="" title="" >
Posted By: JontiThe biggest barrier to PH builds on a mass scale is we simply do not have the numbers of skilled workforce nor enough tradesmen with the attention to detail nor the required oversight of building quality nor enough construction companies who have quality of build as an important factor.
Posted By: WillInAberdeenWe recently sold a house, rented a house and then.bought a house. The energy ratings of the 3 houses made no difference at all to the prices or the rent.
That was painful because we had spent an awful lot of money on transforming the energy efficiency of the first house, expecting it to be our 'forever home', and we basically lost all of that money when we unexpectedly had to relocate. We are being a lot more level headed about improving the next house..
Posted By: revorPosted By: JontiThe biggest barrier to PH builds on a mass scale is we simply do not have the numbers of skilled workforce nor enough tradesmen with the attention to detail nor the required oversight of building quality nor enough construction companies who have quality of build as an important factor.
I totally agree. DT had article today about Heat Pumps and wood burning stoves that appeared on my smart phone. In the comments a householder of a brand new 4 bed house jumped to the defence of HP saying how good his was but when the temperature outside was 0-3 degrees he was using 60 KwH of electricity per day and at 3 to 10 deg 30Kwh I got the impression that was OK!! but added the rider he would not have one in old house so maybe it was deemed to be and expensive way to heat the house. Probably built to building regs standards and not very well at that.
Posted By: revorPosted By: JontiThe biggest barrier to PH builds on a mass scale is we simply do not have the numbers of skilled workforce nor enough tradesmen with the attention to detail nor the required oversight of building quality nor enough construction companies who have quality of build as an important factor.
I totally agree. DT had article today about Heat Pumps and wood burning stoves that appeared on my smart phone. In the comments a householder of a brand new 4 bed house jumped to the defence of HP saying how good his was but when the temperature outside was 0-3 degrees he was using 60 KwH of electricity per day
Posted By: owlmanHow long does PH certification last without being re-assessed ?I don't think there's any such notion. We had a bit of a discussion about it a while ago. I agree there should be some such notion but I'm not sure how it would work. PH doesn't care all that much about what is inside the house except for the basic services. Presumably the certificate becomes invalid as soon as anything listed in the PHPP is no longer there.
Posted By: owlmanWhat about re-arranging the internal walls for example,- not uncommon.How would that affect a PH certificate? It simply doesn't care.
There is also the possibility of knocking holes in external walls. New clients may not be fully briefed as to the effect such measures may have.Yes, in theory any new hole in an external wall should require a new airtightness test. In reality it depends on the existing test value, I suspect, and the size and nature of the hole! Small hole drilled for a new cable, not so much of a problem when sealed. New door or window fitted, absolutely should be retested.
Posted By: JontiMy understanding is PH certification is for 'as built' not that it something that needs reassessing which is over thinking it in my opinion.I think it's 'as built' too. But the airtightness in particular is likely to degenerate over time to some extent. For example, one of our external doors (well the door frame in fact) has warped a little bit so is likely not as airtight as it was. Now our airtightness test was well under the limit, so we'd probably still pass, and I'm not too concerned as a practical matter because that door opens into our conservatory, which is also airtight and triple glazed etc.
Posted By: WillInAberdeenSame as with EPCs, the difficulty is to recertify the energy performance if the present owner doesn't have evidence of all the construction materials and details. If the surveyor cannot see what insulation is under the floor or in the walls, or see certificates for the windows and appliances, they have to assume the worst.Yes, AIUI even if you do have the details they don't rerun SAP they still have to use the even more brain dead rdSAP. It's another reason I don't like EPCs.
The resulting certificate may be disappointingly poor, which (it is intended) would have financial consequences.
Posted By: djhFor example, one of our external doors (well the door frame in fact) has warped a little bit…No problem, just make sure they use that door for the pressure test
Posted By: owlmanWith no ongoing certainty of the house performance therefore, using PH as a selling point perhaps should carry a health warning; a case of caveat emptor.
Posted By: Ed DaviesIndeed! :) Sadly for PH all they need is a small window opening rather than a door. Paul used the window in our downstairs shower for his fan.Posted By: djhFor example, one of our external doors (well the door frame in fact) has warped a little bit…No problem, just make sure they use that door for the pressure test
Posted By: JontiYes, I agree, and caveat emptor is de rigueur when buying a house anyway! But it's legally required to have an up-to-date EPC when selling or letting a house these days, so it wouldn't be completely unreasonable to require a recent confirmation of a PH certificate (whatever that means!) if it was being used as a sale point.Posted By: owlmanWith no ongoing certainty of the house performance therefore, using PH as a selling point perhaps should carry a health warning; a case of caveat emptor.
Though I understand what you mean it seems pretty unrealistic to expect any property to recertificate. PH is a building standard and not a performance check. Can you imagine if every time a house was sold it had to get a building regs certificate for it.
It is a guarantee the house was well built though which is better than most.
Posted By: Simon StillBoth PH and EPC are theoretical. Surely more relevant to, say, a 5 year old house whether certified or uncertified, are the actual energy costs/usage.The problem with in-use figures is that they are subject to arbitrary variation according to how warm people keep their houses so can be manipulated deliberately or simply unknowing.
Posted By: djhPosted By: Simon Still
Energy suppliers forecasts are completely unreliable, at least in our case. I left Bulb early this year after an extended argument with them about their unrealistic forecast for our future usage. They weren't interested in our years of consistent logged actual data and refused to cut the projected payments to a reasonable level. So I moved.
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that's interesting. Bulbs forecasts for use for me were fine, with the costs going up (which turned out to be correct. However, I think when they were going under they were upping everyones monthly payments to try to give them more cashflow. When I asked for a refund they insisted I kept at least one months costs in credit