This paper compares the Passivhaus standard with the proposed UK Future Homes Standard (FHS) 2025, highlighting how Passivhaus, without photovoltaics (PV), offers lower running costs, better occupant comfort, and the same or lower carbon emissions.

Neglecting the Passivhaus principles of an integrated approach, modelling in PHPP and quality assurance can introduce significant risks, as shown in the case studies described in this paper.

The UK Passivhaus Conference 2024 in Oxford explored “The role of Passivhaus in net zero neighbourhoods”.

• Cambridge City Council

• York City Council

• Warksburn Old Church

• Durley Chine Hub

• Oakfield Farm Passivhaus Plus

• Voreda House Office

• Oxford Retrofit Home

Passivhaus certification requires a Summer Comfort Statement, signed by the building owner, detailing the thermal comfort strategy, design assumptions, overheating risks, and stress testing. This template supports certification, accommodating buildings with active cooling by presenting expected cooling results.

The Passivhaus Trust and UK Certifiers Circle advise including an MVHR Maintenance Statement in certification documents. Signed by the client, it outlines maintenance requirements, confirming understanding for UK projects seeking Passivhaus certification.

Explore PHI Passivhaus criteria for energy-efficient, affordable, and comfortable buildings. This guidance offers practical insights into sustainable design, rigorous certification, and optimizing energy performance. Enhance living conditions and support a greener future with Passive House principles.

The How To Build a Passivhaus series is ideal for new Passivhaus Designers/Tradespeople working on small-to-medium projects.

• Design & Coordination

• Building Fabric

• Services Quality

• Handover & Maintenance

PHT costs & benefits guidance shows that innovation costs associated with early Passivhaus projects are now reducing as the methodology has become more widely adopted. Costs are expected to fall further once the Standard is adopted at scale.

Each of the key chapters in Passivhaus Benefits is underpinned by detailed supplementary research, to be published in three supporting papers. The first of these, Health, Wellbeing and People Performance, is available to download now.

To obtain a clearer picture of Passivhaus costs in the UK, AECOM, in conjunction with the Passivhaus Trust, has undertaken a research study into the capital cost of building to certified Passivhaus standards across a number of affordable housing projects in the UK, using a standardised cost tool to compare projects on a like for like basis.

The integration of a steel frame for Passivhaus brings unique challenges. This paper draws on knowledge gained from the first steel frame Passivhaus projects in the UK to offer applied guidance and a best practice approach to high performance and Passivhaus steel buildings.

Learn key insights from the 2024 Large & Complex Passivhaus Series on air testing, MVHR systems, and more through case studies and focused sessions.

• Ventilation, Airtightness & Testing

• Heat Pumps

• Edward’s Court Care Home

• Thermal Bridging

How to Build a Passivhaus: Good Practice Guide covers the essential topics that are key to successfully delivering a Passivhaus project. It reflects the most recent evolution of best practice approaches to designing and building to the Passivhaus and EnerPHit standards.

A new tool to help streamline RIBA Plan of Work processes to optimise the delivery of Passivhaus projects, has just been launched.

Discover the link between Passivhaus and embodied carbon through an on-demand webinar featuring the Trust’s Embodied Carbon paper. Gain insights from industry experts sharing real-life case studies and lessons learned. This is a unique opportunity to deepen your understanding of sustainable design and practical applications in the built environment.

Discover how to minimise thermal bypass risks during design and construction in this detailed technical review.

The Passivhaus community is increasingly acknowledging and focusing on the issue of material choices and resource efficiency, demonstrated by the development of several carbon counting tools, including the embodied carbon PHribbon plug-in for PHPP.

Join our exclusive Passivhaus Masterclass on the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Explore its innovative design, sustainability achievements, and construction challenges. This groundbreaking project unites faculties with a concert hall, theatres, library, café, and meeting spaces, setting a new benchmark for Passivhaus architecture in public academic spaces.

Often considered primarily as the exemplar standard for producing high-performance buildings, Passivhaus does indeed minimise energy demand, but it delivers much more. Passivhaus can slash building heating demand by 90% without compromising our health & wellbeing.

We often take ventilation for granted; most buildings in the UK rely on draughts and leaks! Continuous fresh air & eliminating cold draughts is a key comfort factor for Passivhaus buildings. Often the steepest learning curve is reaching the airtightness target. Breathe easy with this new good practice guide.

This six-part online course will lead you to an understanding of the fundamentals of the Passivhaus standard and how it can help deliver healthy, comfortable buildings as well as achieve pressing net zero targets.

The Passivhaus Social Housing 2024 series offers advice from experienced clients and advisors on delivering Passivhaus projects.

• Handover & Maintenance

• Net Zero

• Summer Comfort

• Costs

Recent summer heatwaves and a heating climate have made us more aware than ever that the risk of overheating in both new and existing buildings demands attention. The Passivhaus Trust has developed detailed guidance accompanied by a PHPP plugin to address this risk.

Explore the optimal timing and strategy for installing air source heat pumps (ASHPs) in retrofit projects. It examines the impact of ASHP installation during various fabric improvement stages using modeling and PHPP to estimate energy demand and running costs, aiding informed decisions for efficient retrofit planning.

This guide highlights significant synergies between the priorities of social housing providers and the multi-faceted benefits of successfully building and delivering Passivhaus homes. The aim is to explain why social housing providers should be aiming for Passivhaus and how to successfully implement the Standard.

The need for this Quality Assurance guide has arisen from the rapid growth of the Passivhaus Standard within the UK and the recognition that with the increased volume, scale and complexity of building projects, that it takes an increasingly well structured quality assurance system to maintain the required standards of design and construction.

The Passivhaus Goes Personal campaign is aimed at anyone contemplating building their own home. Discover why building to Passivhaus is good for you!

The Passivhaus Trust has been working with Rachel Mitchell, Bath University and WARM to analyse the performance of a number of certified Passivhaus dwellings in the UK.

Are you getting the most out of your insulation? Passivhaus buildings are renown for eliminating the performance gap and insulation is crucial to the fabric first approach. This guide provides insight into good practice for designing, procuring, storing and installing insulation materials.

This document with ATTMA provides the technical standard to be followed for the air tightness testing of Passivhaus and other low energy buildings as required as part of a Passivhaus or low energy building design.

A good practice guide to MVHR, written by Dr Mich Swainson, Sally Godber & Andrew Farr, and peer reviewed by Kym Mead, Rupert Kazlauciunas, Nick Grant, Alan Clarke, Alex Baines, Jon Bootland and Mark Siddall.

PHT costs & benefits guidance shows that innovation costs associated with early Passivhaus projects are now reducing as the methodology has become more widely adopted. Costs are expected to fall further once the Standard is adopted at scale.

The Passivhaus Trust has previously published detailed guidance on Passivhaus and zero carbon and Passivhaus and retrofit. These four-page primers will give you a quick but comprehensive overview of the issues covered.

The Passivhaus Trust has previously published detailed guidance on Passivhaus and zero carbon and Passivhaus and retrofit. These four-page primers will give you a quick but comprehensive overview of the issues covered.

A widely adopted rule-of-thumb suggests that MVHR systems are only effective in more airtight buildings. This paper seeks to challenge this convention and suggests that MVHR systems are, in fact, desirable in nearly all domestic situations, either new-build or retrofit.

The Passivhaus community is increasingly acknowledging and focusing on the issue of material choices and resource efficiency, demonstrated by the development of several carbon counting tools, including the embodied carbon PHribbon plug-in for PHPP.

The Passivhaus Retrofit series covers design and delivery, focusing on EnerPHit and its application to projects.

• Cavity Wall

• Step-by-Step Retrofit

• Multi-residential Retrofit

• Non-domestic Retrofit

This short guidance note gives a comprehensive overview of the considerations that must be factored in when designing and specifying an air-to-water heat pump system.

The Managing Moisture on-demand course explores moisture-safe retrofitting for energy efficiency. Learn to prevent moisture issues in building fabric and structure while retrofitting. Gain expert insights and advanced knowledge in moisture management for safer, healthier buildings. Ideal for professionals seeking to enhance retrofit practices.

This paper sets out why EnerPHit must form an essential part of our national Zero Carbon ambitions and advises how to develop an appropriate retrofit plan comparing different standards and guidance.

This paper examines Zero Carbon building definitions and strategies for achieving true emissions reductions. It compares notional building regulations Zero Carbon designs with Passivhaus Classic and renewables, offering insights into meeting Zero Carbon targets for new housing effectively.

The Passivhaus Trust has previously published detailed guidance on Passivhaus and zero carbon and Passivhaus and retrofit. These four-page primers will give you a quick but comprehensive overview of the issues covered.

The Passivhaus Trust has developed guidance accompanied by a PHPP plugin to calculate more representative monthly average internal temperatures for existing buildings and an overall average for the heating season. These temperatures can then be used in the PHPP heating demand calculation to achieve a more accurate indication of energy demand.

This paper provides guidance on quality assurance measures that are required to meet the Passivhaus Standard in the UK.

Discover the similarities between EnerPHit and PAS 2035/2030 and how the two standards complement one another in this new technical paper authored by PHT member QODA’s Dr Sarah Price.

This position paper responds to the report ‘Ready for Zero: Evidence to inform the 2025 Future Homes Standard – Task Group Report’ by the Future Homes Hub. It addresses modelling inacurracies and puts forward four key recommendations for consideration.

For multi-residential or non-residential buildings the Passivhaus Certifier may require dynamic thermal modelling to adequately evaluate summer comfort and overheating risk. This guidance from the UK Certifiers’ Circle aims to establish a common approach to modelling, reporting and user handover in these scenarios.

PHPP is a proven tool for assessing overheating risk. It has already been deemed to satisfy Part O of the Building Regulations (England & Wales) by several Building Control services, and should be accepted as an alternative means of compliance in place of the ‘simplified method’ and the ‘dynamic method’ for single-family dwellings and simple building forms.

This paper serves as a starting point for discussions and agreements between project teams and certification bodies regarding roles, responsibilities, and expectations for achieving Passivhaus certification. The scope of services it presents is designed to be adaptable and applicable to various project types and scales.

This paper introduces the challenges around moisture risk to borne in mind when tackling any retrofit project, and is essential reading for designers, as well as clients who are looking to inform themselves of the key issues and factors that will influence the project.

Modelling undertaken by the Passivhaus Trust demonstrates that an all-electric certified Passivhaus Classic performs better than both options proposed for the Future Homes Standard (FHS) in the 2024 consultation, as well as providing many other benefits.

There is an urgent imperative to decarbonise home heating, but we also need better housing that is more comfortable, healthier and cheaper to run. How do we enable heat pumps and fabric to work in synergy to maximum effect? This paper aims to answer the question by modelling heat pump installation at different levels of home retrofit.

This guidance note from the UK Certifiers’ Circle provides answers to frequently asked questions about what PER is, how it relates to other metrics used in the UK, under what circumstances a bespoke PER criterion might apply, and how to check if it does.

This document provides comprehensive guidance on the maintenance and management of individual Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) units in multi-residential developments.

The 2022 Large & Complex Masterclass explores case studies and research on large Passivhaus projects.

• Agar Grove

• St. Sidwell’s Point Leisure Centre

• RIBA Plan of Work – Passivhaus Overlay

• Steel Frame

The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) version 10 English (2021) is a design tool produced by the Passivhaus Institut Germany for use by building architects and designers. It works on both Mac and PC.

This webinar accompanies our guidance “Air-to-water heat pumps” which simplifies critical design elements with a special focus on air-to-water heat pumps, shedding light on both common oversights and advanced considerations that can elevate building performance to meet diverse energy standards.

Learn design strategies to reduce the risk of overheating, explore key indicators of the likelihood of risk, and how to use stress tests to make your summer comfort solutions more robust.

This document provides guidance for the industry on how to produce effective User Guidance aimed at non-expert occupants for Passivhaus and low energy buildings