Been very busy on site for the last few weeks, internal floor slab poured, building made airtight & blower door tests conducted. Without question the biggest challenge in building a passive house is getting the airtightness down to the 0.6 ac/hr required by the Institute in Darmstadt . There has been much discussion over the year if this is too strict a level to aim for & i suppose the jury is still out on that. As a benchmark, it is between 5 and 15 times better than new homes are supposed to be built to even though they are not actually field test with a power door fan ( see below) and the regular test would involve blocking up all the 'deliberate' building opening e.g. ventilation holes in the wall.
The blower doors test was done to to the Passivhaus standards which means pressurising and depressurising by 50Pascals ( feels like a strong wind when opening & closing doors) and we passed the criterion. Photo below of the fan fitted to an open window for the test.
Also the large precast tank has now been fitted under the garage & is well weighted down - it wont be floating away!
Inside we've been making good progress, a reminder than when plastering on the outside to have the windows and cills very well wrapped in plastic - this is an in progress photo from when the monocouche render was applied...same goes for any render or plaster application though.
All in all the result for airtightness is demonstrable proof that the time & attention to detail on site has been really consistent.
The blower doors test was done to to the Passivhaus standards which means pressurising and depressurising by 50Pascals ( feels like a strong wind when opening & closing doors) and we passed the criterion. Photo below of the fan fitted to an open window for the test.
Also the large precast tank has now been fitted under the garage & is well weighted down - it wont be floating away!
Inside we've been making good progress, a reminder than when plastering on the outside to have the windows and cills very well wrapped in plastic - this is an in progress photo from when the monocouche render was applied...same goes for any render or plaster application though.
All in all the result for airtightness is demonstrable proof that the time & attention to detail on site has been really consistent.
