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© Passive House Institute

Activ­it­ies

We are your com­pet­ent part­ner for ef­fi­ciency meas­ures in the build­ing sec­tor: We are happy to ad­vise you and of­fer you a large port­fo­lio of op­tim­al solu­tions - cus­tom­ised for every build­ing pro­ject.

En­ergy-ef­fi­cient build­ings are an es­sen­tial part of cli­mate pro­tec­tion. They provide high liv­ing com­fort, great in­door air qual­ity, and low en­ergy bills. The build­ing stand­ar­ds Pass­ive House and En­erPHit ret­ro­fit rep­res­ent well tested, cost-ef­fect­ive, and re­li­able solu­tions for achiev­ing high en­ergy-ef­fi­ciency in the build­ing sec­tor.

Get an over­view of our range of ser­vices or jump dir­ec­tly to the ser­vice your are search­ing for:

If you would like to learn more about our ser­vices, please send us an e-mail or con­tact us at (+49) 6151 82699-0.

Pro­ject sup­port and qual­ity as­sur­ance

We are happy to as­sist and ad­vise you in the design, plan­ning and suc­cess­ful im­ple­ment­a­tion of an en­ergy concept for in­di­vidu­al build­ings or en­tire neigh­bour­hoods. Wheth­er for new build­ings or ret­ro­fit pro­jects, from single-fam­ily homes to multi-storey res­id­en­tial build­ings, schools and of­fices to com­plex non-res­id­en­tail build­ings, we have many years of ex­per­i­ence and ex­pert­ise with a wide range of build­ing types.

The main aim of our con­sul­ta­tion ser­vices, pro­ject sup­port and qual­ity as­sur­ance is al­ways to en­sure that the com­pleted build­ing pro­ject re­li­ably provides high com­fort and low en­ergy con­sump­tion. Qual­ity as­sur­ance en­com­passes the test­ing and cer­ti­fic­a­tion of building components, Passive Houses and EnerPHit retrofits.

Our of­fer, tailored to your pro­ject:

  • Pro­ject sup­port: Sound ad­vice on your design op­tions, es­pe­cially through en­ergy bal­an­cing with the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP):

    • Qual­it­ies and de­tails of the build­ing en­vel­ope (e.g. in­su­la­tion thick­ness, win­dow qual­it­ies, air­tight­ness, 2D and 3D thermal bridge cal­cu­la­tions)

    • Simple and cost-ef­fect­ive solu­tions for the build­ing ser­vices and en­ergy sup­ply op­tions (e.g. heat pumps, com­pact heat pumps, co­gen­er­a­tion plants, loc­al/dis­trict heat­ing)

    • Se­lec­tion of suit­able build­ing products and components (thermal en­vel­ope and build­ing ser­vices), veri­fic­a­tion of the en­ergy para­met­ers of the se­lec­ted build­ing com­pon­ents

    • Eco­nom­ic vi­ab­il­ity ana­lyses

    • Feas­ib­il­ity stud­ies on spe­cif­ic is­sues (e.g., Is it pos­sible to in­stall a vent­il­a­tion sys­tem in the build­ing pro­ject? Does it make sense to use in­teri­or in­su­la­tion in the spe­cif­ic case at hand?)

    • Li­fe­cycle as­sess­ments based on the MEET tool de­veloped by the Pass­ive House In­sti­tute to op­tim­ise the en­ergy ef­fi­ciency and green­house gas emis­sions over the whole li­fe­cycle

    • Ad­vice on ten­der­ing and award­ing con­tracts for en­ergy ef­fi­ciency meas­ures

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© Passive House Institute

  • Ad­vis­ory fo­cus on en­ergy-ef­fi­cient ret­ro­fits (e.g. cre­ation of a step-by-step En­erPHit ret­ro­fit plan (also pos­sible with in­teri­or in­su­la­tion) and ad­vice on in­di­vidu­al chal­lenges such as his­tor­ic pre­ser­va­tion)

  • Ana­lyses for the dis­trict level

  • Dy­nam­ic build­ing sim­u­la­tions (e.g. on sum­mer com­fort, cool­ing, and de­hu­mid­i­fic­a­tion; see also "Dynamic building simulations")

  • Concept de­vel­op­ment and con­sult­ing for spe­cial-use build­ings (e.g. swim­ming pools, ice rinks, mu­seums, clin­ics, high-rise build­ings)

  • Qual­ity as­sur­ance

    • Cer­ti­fic­a­tion as Pass­ive House, En­erPHit ret­ro­fit or PHI Low En­ergy Build­ing (see also "Buildings")

    • Meas­ure­ments for identi­fy­ing the status quo and provid­ing qual­ity as­sur­ance (see also "Measurements")

    • Tele­phone sup­port for the con­struc­tion team

  • In-house train­ing tailored to your needs (e.g. for the con­struc­tion team; see also "Training courses")

If you are in­ter­es­ted in our ser­vices in the area of pro­ject sup­port and qual­ity as­sur­ance, please do not hes­it­ate to send us an email or get in touch at (+49) 6151 82699-0.

Dy­nam­ic build­ing si­mu­la­tions

Com­plex build­ing pro­jects of­ten re­quire a more de­tailed thermal ana­lys­is. This may be the case, for in­stance, for build­ings with large glass sur­faces, a spe­cial wall con­struc­tion, strict re­quire­ments for in­door con­di­tions, very much or very little stor­age ca­pa­city or a heat load char­ac­ter­ised by strong tem­por­ary fluc­tu­ations.


Dyn­bil, the tool for dy­nam­ic build­ing sim­u­la­tion de­veloped by the Pass­ive House In­sti­tute since 1980, provides an ana­lys­is with the ne­ces­sary level of de­tail. The Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te uses the tool in its re­search pro­jects but also as part of com­mis­sioned pro­ject sup­port or con­sul­tancy. For ex­ample, it is fre­quently used to as­sess wheth­er "prob­lem­at­ic" rooms will meet the cri­ter­ia for sum­mer com­fort.

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The tool de­ve­loped by the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te has the im­port­ant ad­vant­age that its al­gorithms are very close to the un­der­ly­ing phys­ic­al prin­ciples. Dyn­bil ana­lyses vari­ables, such as sol­ar gains, heat re­ten­tion, and vent­il­a­tion, with a time res­ol­u­tion of one hour and less. Apart from provid­ing thermal build­ing sim­u­la­tions and pre­dict­ing tem­per­at­ures as well as heat­ing and cool­ing loads, the tool can also cal­cu­late hu­mid­ity and mois­ture stor­age in build­ing com­pon­ents.

 

Our of­fer: Hy­gro­ther­mal dy­nam­ic build­ing sim­u­la­tion for pro­ject sup­port or re­search

Con­tact: Email

 

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Meas­ure­ments

The Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te of­fers vari­ous types of meas­ure­ments, which can be car­ried out either as part of a pro­ject sup­port, a re­search pro­ject or as in­di­vidu­al as­sign­ments.

Wheth­er it is a school, of­fice build­ing, de­tached house, apart­ment block, swim­ming pool, mu­seum or hotel ... - we have many years of ex­per­i­en­ce with a wide range of build­ing types and uses and are al­ways happy to bring our ex­pert­ise to bear on new ques­tions and chal­lenges.

Please feel free to get in touch so that we can find the best of­fer for you.

Monitoring Airtightness test Infrared thermography Testing of materials and devices

 

Build­ing mon­it­or­ing can be help­ful in many ways. For one, it can prove that the en­ergy re­quire­ment cal­cu­lated on the basis of long-term cli­mate data for the loc­a­tion and nor­mal us­age con­di­tions is also achieved in prac­tice. Fur­ther­more, a tar­geted mon­it­or­ing can help as­sess in­di­vidu­al meas­ures on the thermal en­vel­ope or build­ing ser­vices. And last but not least, it can an­swer pro­ject-spe­cif­ic ques­tions and val­id­ate sim­u­la­tion mod­els and design guidelines. For in­stance, mon­it­or­ing has played a sub­stan­tial role in the val­id­a­tion of the Pass­ive House standard and the PHPP tool.

For these pur­poses, the most im­port­ant bound­ary con­di­tions (in par­tic­u­lar the weath­er and in­door tem­per­at­ures) as well as ad­di­tion­al para­met­ers rel­ev­ant for en­ergy bal­an­cing (e.g. heat and elec­tri­city con­sump­tion) are meas­ured. If more para­met­ers are re­cor­ded, an in­creas­ingly de­tailed pic­ture of the build­ing's per­form­ance or single as­pects can be cre­ated. Meas­ure­ments of room con­di­tions can range from simple tem­per­at­ure and hu­mid­ity meas­ure­ments us­ing data log­gers to com­plex meas­ure­ments of ra­di­ation asym­metry and tur­bu­lence.

Usu­ally two an­nu­al peri­ods are covered, with the first year provid­ing as­sist­ance with com­mis­sion­ing and op­er­a­tion­al op­tim­isa­tion and the second year be­ing used for quant­it­at­ive ana­lys­is.

From min­im­al mon­it­or­ing for plaus­ib­il­ity checks to our stand­ard pro­ced­ure and de­tailed mon­it­or­ing to cla­ri­fy re­search ques­tions on the build­ing en­vel­ope, vent­il­a­tion sys­tems and sup­ply tech­no­logy, we have ac­quired a wealth of ex­per­i­en­ce since 1996.

 

Our of­fer: Mon­it­or­ing in the de­sired scope and de­tail

Con­tact: Email

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Air­tight­ness tests (also known as "blower door tests") are use­ful and re­com­men­ded for as­sess­ing the level of air­tight­ness of a build­ing. Hence, the test plays an im­port­ant role in the cer­ti­fic­a­tion of Pass­ive Houses and En­erPHit ret­ro­fits.

The meas­ure­ment helps identi­fy and close re­main­ing air leak­eages in the build­ing en­vel­ope, thereby, as­sess­ing the qual­ity of the in­stalled build­ing com­pon­ents. As the vent­il­a­tion sys­tem re­quires a cer­tain level of air­tight­ness, it also im­proves the func­tion­al­ity of the vent­il­a­tion sys­tem.

Dur­ing the meas­ure­ment, a fan is in­stalled air­tight in a door or win­dow. Leaks are then de­tec­ted in the build­ing at a neg­at­ive pres­sure of 50 pas­cals. The leaks can be loc­al­ised by hand, with a flow meter or, in in­ac­cess­ible places, with a ther­mo­graph­ic cam­era.

This in­creases the care taken by the com­pan­ies in­volved in the build­ing en­vel­ope and pre­vents fu­ture struc­tur­al dam­age, draughts and cold air pock­ets.

 

Our of­fer: Air­tight­ness test in­clud­ing de­tailed doc­u­ment­a­tion of leak­ages and, if ne­ces­sary, cre­ation of ther­mo­graphs un­der neg­at­ive pres­sure con­di­tions

Con­tact: Email

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In­frared ther­mo­graphy visu­al­ises the heat ra­di­ation (in­frared light) of an ob­ject. It can be used to de­term­ine and visu­al­ise the sur­face tem­per­at­ure of a build­ing com­pon­ent. This provides us with in­form­a­tion about heat losses and en­ables us to qual­it­at­ively ana­lyse the im­ple­ment­a­tion of thermal in­su­la­tion meas­ures, thermal bridges and warm air flows. Quant­it­at­ive state­ments such as the ex­act thermal in­su­la­tion stand­ard of a build­ing com­pon­ent, on the oth­er hand, are dif­fi­cult to as­sess us­ing ther­mo­graphy. The cor­rect cre­ation and ev­al­u­ation of in­frared im­ages re­quires ex­pert­ise and spe­cial­ised know­ledge. When ana­lysed care­fully, ther­mo­graphy is a valu­able tool for as­sess­ing the thermal en­vel­ope of a build­ing.

 

Our of­fer: In­frared ther­mo­graphy for qual­ity as­sur­ance and pro­cess­ing con­trol

Con­tact: Email

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Database ID: 1211 | Before the retrofit
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Database ID: 1211 | After the retrofit

 

Ma­ter­i­als and devices can be tested in a cli­mat­ic cham­ber with two cli­mat­ic zones. The cham­ber cre­ates pre­cise, con­trolled con­di­tions (e.g. for tem­per­at­ure and hu­mid­ity), which makes it pos­sible to ex­am­ine the re­li­ab­il­ity, per­form­ance and wear of the ma­ter­i­al or device un­der real­ist­ic con­di­tions.

 

Our of­fer: Test­ing of ma­ter­i­als or devices in a cli­mat­ic cham­ber

Con­tact: Email

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Re­fe­ren­ces (Build­ing pro­jects & ac­com­pa­ny­ing re­search)

The Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te is your know­ledge­able part­ner for all new builds and ret­ro­fit pro­jects, ran­ging from small single-fam­ily homes to multi-storey apart­ment build­ings, of­fice towers and schools to more com­plex non-res­id­en­tial pro­jects like mu­seums, pools or hos­pit­als.

Here is an ex­em­plary se­lec­tion of pro­jects we have been in­volved in:

Residential buildings
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  • Multi-storey apart­ment build­ing in Co­logne

    • Ret­ro­fit

    • Our ser­vices: Pas­sive House Plus cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Datenbank-ID 7540

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  • Single-fam­ily home in Darm­stadt (Ar­heil­gen)

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  • Single-fam­ily home in Darm­stadt (Mar­tins­vi­er­tel)

    • Ret­ro­fit

    • Our ser­vices: blower door test

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  • Res­id­en­tial home "An­to­ni­us­haus" in Hoch­heim am Main

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: blower door test

Educational buildings
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  • Uni­versity of Ox­ford: The Ste­phen A. Schwarz­man Cen­tre for the Hu­ma­ni­ties

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: Pas­siv­e House Clas­sic cer­ti­fic­a­tion

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  • Astrid Lind­gren school in Wei­ter­stadt

    • Ret­ro­fit of the "Swedish block"

    • Our ser­vices: pro­ject sup­port + sum­mer si­mu­la­ti­on + En­er­PHit cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Database ID 7744

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  • Astrid Lind­gren school in Wei­ter­stadt

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: pro­ject sup­port + sum­mer ­si­mu­la­ti­on + Pass­ive House Plus cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Database ID 7735

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  • Primary school in Raun­heim

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: pro­ject sup­port + Pass­ive House Clas­sic cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Database ID 7313

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  • Ber­tolt Brecht school in Darm­stadt

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: Pas­siv­e House Plus cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Database ID 7736

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  • Cam­pus of the Cham­ber of Crafts in Tri­er

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: Pas­sive House Clas­sic cer­ti­fic­a­tion + per­form­ance op­tim­isa­tion + mo­ni­to­ring

    • Database ID 6862

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  • Chri­stoph Graup­ner school in Darm­stadt

    • Ret­ro­fit and build­ing ex­ten­sion

    • Our ser­vices: blo­wer door test, en­ergy bal­an­cing ac­cord­ing to the Ger­man norm 18599

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  • Eli­sa­beth Sel­bert school in Ba­ben­hau­sen

    • En­erPHit ret­ro­fit, house in a house ret­ro­fit

    • Our ser­vices: pro­ject sup­port

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  • Gym of the Jo­hann Hin­rich Wi­chern school in Saar­louis

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: pro­ject sup­port

Office buildings
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  • Town hall in Baes­weiler

    • Ret­ro­fit and build­ing ex­ten­sion

    • Our ser­vices: En­er­PHit- and Pas­siv­e House Clas­sic cer­ti­fic­a­tion

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  • Hes­si­an Min­istry of Fin­ance

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: pro­ject sup­port + Pas­siv­e House Clas­sic cer­ti­fic­a­tion + com­mis­sion­ing sup­port

    • Database ID 4255

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  • De­part­ment of parks and re­cre­ation in Frank­furt am Main

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: Pas­sive House Clas­sic cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Database ID 4524

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  • Of­fices of the "In­sti­tut Woh­nen und Um­welt" in Darm­stadt

Special-use buildings
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  • St Sid­well's Point Lea­su­re Cen­tre in Exe­ter (in-door pool, gym, well­ness centre)

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: Pas­siv­e House Clas­sic cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Database ID 7393

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  • Art re­pos­it­ory in Darm­stadt

    • New build

    • Our ser­vices: Pas­sive House Plus cer­ti­fic­a­tion

    • Database ID 7753

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  • Hos­pit­al in Frank­furt am Main

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  • Church in Heins­berg

As an in­ter­na­tion­ally lead­ing, prac­tice-ori­en­ted re­search centre, the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te has been and con­tin­ues to be in­volved in pi­lot pro­jects. More in­form­a­tion on these pro­jects can be found un­der "Research".