The house next to the lake has received passive house certification

At the beginning of August 2022, the House by the Lake received Passive House certification. In addition to the owners' joy at paying low energy bills without compromising on comfort, the certification also comes with confirmation that the work of those involved was well done. Revista din Lemn has covered each stage in detail, benefiting from the total openness of Ion Iosif, the owner of the house, to share his experience. Find all the videos of this project on roadulsprecasă.ro.

The house is a prefabricated wooden panel structure and was built by Litarh. The experience gained in the construction of timber frame houses realized in many countries in Europe, but also in Romania has spoken its word. The house next to the lake is well joined, very well thermally insulated, without thermal bridges and airtight according to the criteria of a passive house. The tests carried out both during the works and at the end prove this.

Architect Adriana Sîngeap was in charge of the certification process. Adriana attended the first Passive Case organized by OAR and INCERC Bucharest. He also participated as a volunteer in translating the course. After passing the specialized exam - corrected by representatives Passive House Institute (PHI) in Germany - has been granted the right to practice for 5 years as a PHI designer, to use their logo and to be listed on their official website. The right to profess is automatically extended if within the 5 years of the exam they certify a house PHI, which is what happened with the certification of the House by the Lake.

I learned more about the certification process from Adriana.

What does your work consist of? What did you actually do to certify Ion's house?

I was in charge of the PHI certification part of the "House by the Lake" from the PHI designer point of view. The first step was the realization of a service offer which I sent to the beneficiary. Following the approval of the offer, we started interdisciplinary work with gathering and processing of information through discussions with all other parties involved: certifier, designers, contractors.

What are the steps to certify a passive house?

Phase 1 is called "Pre-certification" (the main examination) and Phase 2 is called "Finalization of certification".
It requires a PHI designer (in this case, me) and a PHI certifier, both accredited by the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt, Germany through specialized course and exams. Both the designer and the certifier need to be independent and neutral in order to correctly, objectively evaluate all components of the house undergoing the PHI certification process.

The certifier creates an online link with account and password access, where the designer uploads several required documents (PHPP calculation, data sheets, pictures, descriptions, etc.). There are a total of 9 chapters with 50 sub-chapters in this link. The certifier verifies all uploaded documents, asks for clarifications - if needed, approves the correct parts and at the end will ask PHI for the certificate and the façade plate. Progress on the link is easily tracked by a graduated bar from 0% to 100%.

What are the criteria for certification?

The criteria are those listed in the 9 chapters in the photo above. They basically encompass the requirements of energy efficient houses (the 5 criteria already known to your followers: continuous thermal envelope, increased airtightness, high performance triple glazing, heat recovery ventilation and no thermal bridges). But they also include information on the increased interior comfort, very low fuel consumption and construction quality that will remain unchanged over time.

What were the results of the Lake House?

The results were very good thanks to the involvement and attention of the beneficiary. His desire to create a healthy and low-consuming house resulted in a heating requirement of 15 kWh/m² per year, a cooling requirement of 14 kWh/m² per year and an airtightness of n50=0.51/h (number of air changes/hour at a pressure of 50 Pascal).

For more technical data, please visit here Passive House Institute link where this information was published. 

When was the Lakeside House certified?

Early August 2022 (the entire PHI certification process took about 1 year and ran in parallel with the construction site).

What would you like to say about its energy efficiency to people who want to build a house?

In the current political climate, our anxieties translate monetarily into our comfort and standard of living. That's why it's good to do things in a sustainable way, to organize ourselves in advance and plan our budget realistically in order to be independent. I believe that everyone can optimize themselves to take advantage of what nature offers us for free (through soil, water, wind and sun). More recently, Romania's alignment with the EU legislative framework is "forcing" us to reach normality nZEB. Passive and energy-efficient houses are subject to even stricter criteria than nZEB, but the benefits are seen over time (lower maintenance costs, healthier environment, increased home value over time).

What do you recommend for those who don't want to have their house certified but want to have an energy efficient home?

Several of the homes I work on have chosen not to go through with the certification process, realizing the extra work involved. I understood this and supported them. I believe you can build well without this last step. I helped these beneficiaries with estimates, on-site optimizations and integrated details.

But from experience, I can say that everyone involved is much more careful if they know it will be certified in the end! 

Passive house is about comfort with very low conventional energy consumption

Passive house building is not a fad or a fad, it is an expression of forward thinking. Even if the first passive house was built 30 years agoThe need for such homes is now more topical than ever. The very difficult global context is forcing us to find solutions to preserve, as far as possible, the comfort we have gained after almost 400 years of industrial revolutions.

We all dread the onset of winter because we know we will have to pay more and conditions will be worse. Those who have been more far-sighted and insulated their homes are a little reassured, but not by much. If you want a new home, ensure your comfort by thinking ahead. A passive house is up to 75% less energy-intensive to maintain than a normally built house and up to 90% less than an old house. There are solutions to use heat from the sun or from the ground, heat from our bodies or electrical appliances can be recovered.

It was from this information that Ion started when he thought about building his house. He didn't want a big house but a comfortable one with minimal maintenance costs. He researched, took advice, chose the best solutions and invested in the future. Now he has received confirmation that the choices were right, the people involved worked well and everything has turned out as he wanted. To avoid future headaches, build like Ion! 🙂