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Sustainable Built Environments pp 327–349Cite as

Passive House (Passivhaus)

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Part of the Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology Series book series (ESSTS)

  • Originally published in
  • R. A. Meyers (ed.), Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, © Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2018

Glossary

Airtight construction:

A method of construction for building envelopes that targets less than 0.6 ACH or 0.5 cfm50/ft2 envelope – infiltration rates when tested for air leakage at 50 Pa pressure.

Balanced mechanical ventilation with heat recovery:

Highly energy-efficient mechanical equipment for airtight homes to provide constant amounts of fresh air (20 cfm/person [30 m3/h]) to the inhabitants and to exhaust the same amount of air to remove moisture, stale air, and indoor pollutants. The system must also recover the energy from exhaust air at the highest possible level, which helps maintain thermal comfort in the building.

Passive (house) building concept:

A building achieving close to thermal stasis by employing a set of building science principles to optimize heat loss and gain through the building shell. Primarily, this means limiting transmission losses by using climate-specific insulation levels of its components and appropriate window specifications to maintain thermal...

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Bibliography

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Passive House Institute US, Chicago, IL, USA

    Katrin Klingenberg

Authors
  1. Katrin Klingenberg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katrin Klingenberg .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Vivian Loftness

Section Editor information

  1. Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Vivian Loftness

Additional information

The Passive House Institute United States (PHIUS) is a nonprofit certifying, training, and research firm working to further the implementation of passive building standards in North America and globally. www.passivehouse.us.

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Klingenberg, K. (2020). Passive House (Passivhaus). In: Loftness, V. (eds) Sustainable Built Environments. Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0684-1_351

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