06/08/2012
Free Passivhaus Projects Brochure from Kingspan Insulation.
As the leading international low-energy performance standard, attaining Passivhaus status is one of the most challenging but rewarding approaches to minimising a building’s energy usage. Kingspan Insulation has released a new brochure showing how a variety of new build and refurbishment projects in the UK have achieved this level of performance with the help of Kingspan Insulation products.
The brochure features seven case studies on projects from all corners of the country, including a student residence in Leeds, homes-of-the-future in Inverness and a cottage in Hereford (fitted to meet the Passivhaus retrofit standard, EnerPhit). For both Passivhaus and EnerPHit standard projects, ensuring floors, roofs and walls are all airtight and insulated to an extremely high standard is an essential requirement. For this reason, the premium performance provided by Kingspan’s Kooltherm range was particularly important on several of the case studies. This was especially true of retrofits carried out on two Victorian Terraces on Princedale Road and Lena Gardens in London, where local planning restrictions prevented the use of external insulation.
On these projects, preserving the already limited internal space, while still achieving the required thermal performance, was absolutely vital. At Lena Gardens an unbroken layer of Kingspan Kooltherm K12 Framing Board was installed on the external walls by rehanging floors within the thermal envelope. This minimised thermal bridging and allowed the building to achieve an external wall U-value of just 0.1 W/m2.K using only 180mm of the Kooltherm K12 insulation.
Similarly at Grove Cottage in Hereford, just 100mm of Kooltherm K3 Floorboard was installed on the ground floor. This ability of Kooltherm range products, to achieve maximum thermal performance with minimal thicknesses, also allowed architects greater freedom to include more decorative features which often don’t appear on Passivhaus-type building, for instance the dormer window installed at Cropthorne Autonomous House.
On new build projects such as the Carnegie Village student accommodation in Leeds, extra space could be provided as part of the design to enable even higher levels of performance. Here the Kooltherm K7 Pitched Roof Board was used as part of a roof build-up which achieved an incredible final U-value of just 0.06 W/m2.K.
Kingspan Insulation is a founder member of the Passivhaus Trust, an independent, not for profit organisation which aims to promote the adoption of the Passivhaus standard as a means of reducing both carbon emissions and energy usage.
The Passivhaus brochure can be downloaded from the Kingspan Insulation website.