First Steps:What can be a Passive House in Your region with your climate

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The Passive House Institute have developed several Passive house building techniques to suit the central European climate, however theses techniques need  to be adjusted to suit the location and climate that the passive house is being constructed in. the local building traditions and specific climatic conditions must be considered for each  region. Mistakes have been made in the past of copying passive house design from one region for another region with different climatic conditions and have resulted in poor performance. When designing a passive house, the passive house method should be used which determines the appropriate passive house solution.

The principal behind all passive houses is the same, reducing investment through energy efficient design. For a passive house the peak heating load should be projected to a lower level than 10 W/m². There is very little extra benefit increasing efficiencies past this as constructions costs increase too much.

Some rules of thumb include, comfort levels should be high, insulation heat recovery and shading is recommended in all climates. In many cases thee ground is used as a heat or cold buffer. A traditional building type can be used as a starting point and then each element can be modified accordingly.