FacebookBloggerEmailYouTubePinterest
alternative text

SHOWHOUSE

Our show house viewings and presentations are available every Wednesday at 3pm. No need to book.

Extra show house viewing and presentation:
Sat, May 25th 2024 at 12pm

How to find us…

More previous houses built (click here for photo gallery)...

Heating systems

Heating systems2020-05-01T15:48:58+01:00

How much heating does one of our passive houses need?

The heating requirements of our passive houses:

This depends on a couple of things. The design of course, the orientation of windows, the number of floors but most importantly the overall size of the house and the number of occupants living there.

Because passive houses are so efficient, people themselves contribute significantly to heating the building though body heat, (roughly 100W per person) as well as their activities such as cooking, showering, running appliances, lighting and so on. The size and number of windows also play a big role in both losing heat and letting energy in through solar gains. This means that the heating bill for one of our houses is not fixed and varies depending on conditions.

When a family lives in one of our smaller Atlanticas they sometimes never turn on the heating at all, all year around. Conversely if a couple or single person lives in one of our larger houses, they will need to have some source of heating for the winter months.

In general most of our passive houses need no space heating for 8-10 months of the year to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature of 20°C all year around. Read about this on our energy performance page here

Heating system passive hosue

Our heating solutions:

For those few months a year where most of our houses do need a little spacing heating there are a few heating options. This depends on the size of the house and customer preferences.

Electric underfloor heating

All our houses always come with 200W electric underfloor heating in tiled rooms and have one main 2400W loop in the ground floor. These are low power systems and can be used to give a comfortable floor surface temperature or function as the main heating system on its own, read more about it here

Electric underfloor heating tiles

Solar panels + small stove

For many houses we like to recommend our customers to opt for 7 or 14 photovoltaic (electric) solar panels and a small wood burning stove. This solution gives a great deal of independence where people can themselves source wood to burn and produce their own electricity. It is also very simple, with a long life and low maintenance. As the ESB does not yet pay for receiving excess generated electricity, as in most EU countries, we use a system that redirects any excess power to heat your own hot water immersion, this is especially useful as the solar power generated fluctuates significantly.

With this solution you get free hot water most of the year and generate electricity to run your appliances, lights etc. almost all year round. The stove is used every couple of days in winter months to boost indoor temperature depending on preference.

The stoves we use are Swedish, very efficient and don’t have a significant impact on the overall house thermal efficiency or air tightness. Read more about our high-tech stoves here

Stove with glass metal
300W kilowatt hour photovoltaic solar panel immersion

Air to water heat pump

For large houses an air to water heat pump can be a good solution. An air to water heat pump works in the same way as a fridge by condensing and evaporating gasses, effectively heating water using energy from the outside air. In short, an air to water heat pump heats water using 1/3 of the electricity that a regular immersion would use.

The hot water produced is used for both regular domestic use and for heating the house using wet underfloor heating or radiators. This system is automatic and very simple to use but it is expensive and has a short life span of 15-20 years after which the machine will break and need to be replaced.

Air to water immersion heat pump price

No heating system

Particularly for smaller houses, having no heating system makes a lot of sense. When little or no heating is required, the small amount of electric under-floor cables are enough to boost or heat many of our houses in the winter months. This works out much cheaper for the customer and more environmentally friendly than installing a heat pump or heating system that is not needed and overkill for the house.

Unfortunately, the Building Energy Rating Certificate (BER) assumes that unless a heat pump is used the house has to be consuming colossal amounts of energy to stay warm by using electric radiators, regardless of whether they actually are installed in the house or not. Amazingly this means that a house can be a certified Passive house using less than 15kWh per square meter per year and still receive a mediocre BER rating.

BER rating problems wrong
Go to Top