Innovative Danish Building Envelope Components for Passive Houses

The Passive House concept has not as yet become generally accepted in Denmark. But there is a growing awareness of the concept as a solution to achieve high thermal comfort conditions and a low energy demand on low construction costs. This growing awareness is partly due to the introduction of new tighter energy performance requirements in 2006 and a new classification system, where buildings can be classi¬fied as being a “Low energy building class 1 or 2”.

These new requirements are based on the EU-directive on Energy Performance of Buildings, EPBD (2002/91/EC). The new classification system will make it possible for building contractors to better promote low energy houses and even passive houses to the consumers. The consumers will, in an easy way, be able to demand that their new house should have a better energy performan¬ce than the minimum requirements specified in the Building Regulations.

The perhaps most important basic passive house concept requirement in a relatively cold Danish climate is envelope constructions with superior thermal insulation without thermal bridges. Some Danish producers of building components have during the last couple of years, developed new highly insulated and in some cases very innovative envelope constructions.

In this paper, two of the most interesting components are described; a prefabricated light-weight exterior wall element with a load-bearing plywood and steel frame and a foundation / slab on ground solution based on concrete and EPS insulation materials. To illustrate the thermal efficiency of the new components in a realistic context, the paper will show results from detailed calculations of the space heating demand and peak heating load for a newly built single-family house.