Friday – Saturday, 19 – 20 April 2013
Website | Congress Center, Messe, Frankfurt
Friday 22 March 2013. It is very positive to note that there will be three representatives from Ireland presenting papers at the upcoming International Passive House Conference in Frankfurt.
Art McCormack – Groundbreaking Training for Passive House Tradespersons
Due to a glaring imbalance in Passivhaus expertise in Ireland in favour of the Designer / Consultant (CEPH) level that leaves a critical void at site level, The Passive House Academy (PHA) has worked with FÁS to develop courses that ensure construction-based tradespersons are competent at realising buildings to the Passivhaus Standard.
Two courses have been developed leading to the qualification of ‘Certified Passive House Tradesperson’, which, in turn, is further qualified as either ‘Building Envelope’ or ‘Building Services’ (the latter actually focusing on the mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system).
The paper to be presented at the International Passive House Conference provides a brief outline of the development process and covers the experience of PHA in delivering both courses a number of times both in Ireland and in the USA. It then proceeds to provide advice in order to optimise course content, delivery and quality of graduate.
Ann-Marie Fallon, Joseph Little –
Retrofitting Ireland’s first EnerPHit house – issues, challenges, solutions
Part 1): The Monkstown EnerPHit in Dublin is Ireland’s first certified super-low energy retrofit of any kind. It features EPS EWI on existing masonry and woodfibre EWI on timber frame amongst other features. The project exemplifies a range of the issues EnerPHit can throw up. The airtightness regime was supported by specifications and drawings yet still required four formal construction stage tests on top of programmed three tests and a related delay.
Part 2): The dynamic whole building hygrothermal simulation tool WUFI® Plus (from Fraunhofer IBP) now has an add-on tab titled WUFI® Passive. This allows the import of PHPP models. The hygrothermal characteristics of building materials are then added to the steady state values they have in PHPP. The internal climate of the building can then assessed for overheating, moisture load and comfort conditions, and the building fabric can be assessed for transient and moisture related thermal performance as well as risk of condensation, mould and rot.
Joseph Little will also present a Poster on: ‘Managing moisture – the key to healthy internal wall insulation retrofits of solid walls’.
Tomás O Leary – Target to deliver 100,000m² Passive House Projects in New York City by 2017
Tomas O’Leary will present a paper at the 17th International Passive House Conference on the topic of the rapid uptake of Passive House in New York City. A target has been set for 100,000m2 of PH projects by 2017, which looks set to be smashed well in advance. Tomas is Director of the US Passive House Academy, and is especially active in the NYC area in the field of both training and building certification. NYC looks to be the front-runner region in the US and Tomas will explain how this came about and how other regions can follow suit.
