Building a passive house isn’t simply a matter of thicker insulation or more modern building services. A building’s energy performance is determined by the entire building envelope, the design of the details, and — above all — their consistent, precise execution.
Alongside numerous low-energy buildings, B2 Házak has also delivered a certified passive house as general contractor.
This gives us hands-on experience where the continuity of the thermal envelope, managing thermal bridges, air-tightness, window and door installation, and coordinating the building services weren’t just general energy goals — they were fundamental requirements of construction.
A well-designed passive house only delivers its intended energy performance in the finished building if the solutions set out in the plans are executed precisely and consistently during construction.
The following matter especially:
In a conventional building, a small construction inaccuracy can sometimes go unnoticed. In a passive house, the very same detail can directly affect the building’s air-tightness, heat loss, or even the moisture performance of the structure.
The term “passive house” is often used loosely today for any highly energy-efficient building. A certified passive house, however, means more than that: the building must meet defined energy and technical requirements, and compliance must be verifiable in the completed building itself.
As general contractor, B2 Házak has delivered a certified passive house, alongside several other residential buildings where low energy demand and high building-energy standards were a defining requirement.
The experience gained from a certified project is especially valuable during construction, because the critical structural details and the cooperation between trades must meet requirements that can be verified in practice.
For an energy-efficient building, it’s not enough to apply adequate insulation separately to the walls, roof or floor.
A building’s thermal envelope has to function as one continuous system.
Particular attention is needed, for example, at:
A correctly designed detail alone isn’t enough, though — it also has to be built exactly as designed.
One of a passive house’s fundamental requirements is that the building is properly air-tight.
The air-tight layer runs through numerous different structures and junctions. Its continuity has to be ensured across the entire building, even though mechanical and electrical services, structural connections and windows or doors can all penetrate or interrupt it.
This is why air-tightness isn’t the responsibility of a single trade.
The work of the structural contractor, the window and door installer, the mechanical and electrical trades, and other specialists all has to be organised so the air-tight plane is never compromised. Coordinating this properly matters especially because many of these details get covered up during later work phases, and afterwards can only be fixed by significant demolition.
Our certified passive house achieved an outstanding result in its Blower Door test: an n50 air change rate of 0.19 1/h. This isn’t just excellent compared to the passive house requirement — it ranks among the very best results achieved in Hungary, and stands out on an international level too.
A modern, well-insulated window or door doesn’t guarantee a good result on its own.
How the window or door performs depends on its position within the wall structure, its fixing, the connecting insulation, and the design of both its external and internal junctions, all together.
For a passive house, the following matter especially:
One condition for a passive house’s low energy demand is a well-designed and correctly installed building services system.
Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery ensures continuous air exchange while recovering a significant share of the heat from the outgoing air.
The building services installation, however, has to be taken into account as early as the structural work.
Properly preparing for penetrations, pipework, plant space requirements and structural connections in advance prevents later building-services work from damaging the thermal or air-tight envelope.
One advantage of a passive house is that certain construction requirements can be verified not just visually, but by measurement.
The measurement used to check air-tightness, for example, allows any air-tightness defects to be identified while construction can still address them.
This is why it matters that the construction process is organised so critical structures can still be inspected — and corrected if necessary — before they’re covered up.
In a passive house, quality isn’t only visible on the finished surfaces — the precision of the structural details that later get covered up matters just as much.
Not every energy-efficient family house needs to obtain passive house certification.
Low-energy buildings can also apply the same solutions that give passive houses their strong energy performance:
The level of requirement and the technical solutions chosen always depend on the given project’s plans and energy goals.
The job of construction is then to turn the energy concept set out in the plans into a system that actually works in the finished building.
Among B2 Házak’s references, alongside several low-energy residential buildings, is a certified passive house that we delivered as general contractor.
If you’re looking for a general contractor to build an energy-efficient family house or passive house, send us the available plans along with a short overview of the project.
In our first consultation we’ll review the planned building, the desired technical scope, and the options for construction.
