Passivhaus training course

[graeme m]

Has anyone done one, is it worth it?

[Nickfromwales]

Are there any examples of available courses ?

[Nickfromwales]

Here's one or it's a trip to Germany ?? 

[Declan52]

I looked at this one back in the day but it seemed like it was just stating the obvious. Think they are more for some one who intends to be a consultant who can talk the talk but as usual didn't really have a clue.

http://www.passivehouseacademy.com/index.php/our-services/training/europe-training-events/tradesperson-building-envelope

[Ian]

There’s an important difference between those  2 courses. One is ‘Passiv’ and the other  is ‘Passive’

Edited January 19, 2018 by Ian

[MikeSharp01]

I did the PHPP course at BRE. Just one day but we'll worth the money as you get the software, a good grounding in PH thinking and how to apply the package.

 

 

[graeme m]

I did the Passive House Academy course last week with Saint Gobain in Erith (what S'hole that is). The tutor was a very clued up young Irishman called Michael  McCarthy. He is like an encyclopedia of Passive and I learnt lots but not in the way I was expecting. Ireland seems to have ten years on the UK Passive build wise.  Most of it was classroom based but we did get some hands on with airtightness membrane and tapes. Lots of Professional builders on the course without much knowledge or experience of PH.

[Onoff]

Erith, my old stomping ground. Aka Single Mother City!

[Jeremy Harris]

2 minutes ago, graeme m said:

 Ireland seems to have ten years on the UK Passive build wise. 

 

 

That is exactly what I found when looking around for a builder to build our house.  It's no accident that our house frame was built in Ireland, that it is fitted with Irish made doors and windows and the foundations and house were installed and erected by Irish guys.   For them, building a well-insulated and airtight house to passive house standards was normal, everyday, work.  I suspect they may well have felt less at home building a typical UK-type timber frame, TBH.

 

Part of this was driven by the big change in Irish Building Regulations and the way they are applied, following both the disastrous period when really rubbish houses were being thrown up during the boom years, and also because there seems to be more emphasis on energy efficiency, which may have a fair bit to do with natural resources and pressure to reduce things like peat-burning power stations.

[graeme m]

I was surprised to hear Ireland actually has more power than it needs, no FITs over there, they don't want the extra electricity. Water is free, although they do pay for it in taxes. Sadly they still use pellet burners and say they're carbon neutral.

[Jeremy Harris]

8 minutes ago, graeme m said:

I was surprised to hear Ireland actually has more power than it needs, no FITs over there, they don't want the extra electricity. Water is free, although they do pay for it in taxes. Sadly they still use pellet burners and say they're carbon neutral.

 

But it does pay a heavy price, in terms of balance of payments, for that, as believe they import a great deal of their fuel.  They also have issues with their electricity infrastructure that has shaped how they deal with microgeneration, I believe, and that may well be why they've not been so keen to encourage it via subsidies.  I suspect that the dire financial situation after the crash of the Celtic Tiger economy hasn't helped, but at least they got decent roads out of it!

[Dudda]

As an architect living and working in Ireland I have to take regular training as part of professional development. I haven't done Passive training (some in the office have) but do use PHPP regularly and can work out thermal bridge PSI values. We've a huge amount of different environmental regulations and standards. Currently the big one is NZEB (Near Zero Energy Buildings). All public buildings currently getting designed have to be NZEB. Houses have strict environmental regulations and each house has a building energy rating (BER) but will get a tiny bit more strict as they will have to be NZEB in addition soon. Then you have a large amount of international companies that use Ireland as their headquarters such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AirBnB, Microsoft, eBay, etc as well as non tech business and pharma companies. All these American companies want LEED certification and then we've BREAM as well and some look for certain aspects of WELL (a nice building to live in standard).

 

Water payments in Ireland are a huge issue that almost brought down a government and could be a whole thread in itself.

 

Between LEED, BREAM, NZEB, PSI, BER, EPC, CPC, WELL you're not far short passive house certification for a lot of new builds. Most don't bother with it as you're paying a lot more for a cert to hang in the hallway and you've usually quiet a few already.

 

The electrical infrastructure is improving (with opposition some areas whey they don't want new high power lines going near them). With all the regulations it's hard to not put PV panels on a new building (and getting harder) and therefore no real need for the government to introduce FIT. Why pay when people are already feeding into the grid for free? The electrical infrastructure is more of an excuse to FIT.