Paul McAlister Architects - The Barn Studio, Portadown, Northern Ireland, Bespoke Houses, House Extensions, Housing Developments, Northern Ireland, Architects, Portadown, Armagh, Craigavon Lurgan, Chartered Architects

Main Design Principles in an energy efficent Design

Passive House Principles - Passive Houses are buildings which ensure a comfortable indoor climate in summer and in winter without needing a conventional heating system. To permit this, it is essential that the building's annual demand for space heating does not exceed 15 kWh/m2year. The minimal heat requirement can be supplied by heating the supply air in the ventilation system - a system that is necessary in any case. A PDF document explaining a passive system and the principles behind it can be downloaded here



Triple-glazed advanced window technology. A type of window providing thermal insulation by using three panes of glass hermetically sealed with two internal air gaps.



Whole house mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. Heat recovery ventilation (MVHR) is a ventilation system that employs a counter-flow heat exchanger between the inbound and outbound air flow. Heat recovery ventilation provides fresh air and improved climate control, while also saving energy by reducing the heating or cooling requirements.



Air-tightness. Air leakage through unsealed joints must be less than 0.6 x the house volume per hour.	.



Super Insulation is an approach to building design, construction, and retrofitting. A superinsulated house is intended to be heated predominantly by intrinsic heat sources (waste heat generated by appliances and the body heat of the occupants), without using passive solar building design techniques or large amounts of thermal mass, and with very small amounts of backup heat.



Thermal Bridging - Enhanced Construction Details
The significance of Thermal Bridging, as a potentially major source of fabric heat losses, is increasingly understood. A thermal bridge occurs when there is a gap between materials and structural surfaces. The main thermal bridges in a building are found at the junctions of facings and floors, facings and cross walls; facings and roofs, facings and low floors. They also occur each time there is a hole (doors, windows …). These are structural thermal bridges. These thermal bridges vary in importance according to the type of wall or roof.