PHI Low Energy Building Certification

Although the Design-stage certification was to the Passivhaus standard, the best post-build air tightness test result only gave a reading of 0.9 which is not sufficient for the full Passivhaus certification (which must be 0.6 or lower). In principle it’s still possible to fix the air leaks and obtain Passivhaus certification but since that’s likely to be disruptive and to take some time I decided to proceed with Passivhaus Institute “Low Energy Building” certification instead.

The certification was done by Kym Mead; he sent the certificate a while back and I’ve just now installed the plaque.

PHI Low Energy Building Plaque

MVHR Air Intake Filter Research

I follow a number of green building folks on Twitter and a recent Tweet from Kate de Selincourt alerted me to a research study that is looking at long-term changes in pollution and air quality by analysing MVHR intake filter samples from buildings in different locations. I presume the focus is on particulate pollution since I don’t expect NOx will leave any trace on the filter.

The research is being done by Claire Jamieson at Phi Architecture in conjunction with the Buildings, Energy and Environment Research Group at Nottingham University and the Green Building Store. There’s more information about the study and a sign-up form here.

I think this is a great idea since the filters are collecting the samples anyway and are normally just thrown away. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the research, which they say will be published annually.