The main advantage of the “house of the future” over ordinary houses is unconditional comfort. Comfortable is when it is warm in winter and cool in summer, light at any time of the year and easy to breathe at any time of the day. A comfortable home is an energy efficient home designed to conserve all consumed resources, including not upsetting the balance between man and nature. Eco-friendly materials used for construction and insulation contribute to this.
The history of energy efficient houses
The house of the future is an energy efficient (passive) house. The first such houses appeared at the end of the eighties of the last century. The concept of a "passive" house was developed by Professor Bo Adamson in 1988 during research at the University of Lund in Sweden. The first requirement for such a house is the ability to get by with minimal heating in the harsh Scandinavian winters. An alternative to external heating was to be internal heat sources, sources of solar energy that penetrate the windows and heat the air.
Over time, other requirements for a passive house appeared. It turned out that saving heat alone is not enough: the house should have a minimum energy consumption. On the technical side, an energy efficient house is an independent power system that absolutely does not require any outside intervention to maintain the optimal temperature inside. However, in the conditions of protracted Russian winters, it is still difficult to achieve such a balance without alternative sources of heating.
Decent advantages of new homes
So, the advantages of modern energy efficient houses can be called with confidence:
a) reduction in energy consumption;
b) a comfortable microclimate inside the room, excluding air temperature drops;
c) always stable air humidity;
d) reduction of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
In general, a passive house is a set of optimal conditions for human life. The houses of the future are the houses of long-livers.
Important components of a passive house: thermal insulation, airtightness, ventilation, correct windows
The first step in building an energy efficient home is choosing sustainable materials. The most suitable in this regard are wood, stone, brick. In some European countries, they act even more expediently from an environmental point of view: houses are built from recycled inorganic materials - glass, metal and concrete.
After choosing the material, it's time to decide on the correct location of the house: so that the sun's rays can be used at the maximum possible power, so that the wind rose is located most successfully, in order to neutralize the harm of precipitation, for example, from hail, snowstorms.
From the very first days of construction, we start thermal insulation, because everything must be protected here: the foundation, floor, walls, ceiling, roof. It is better to install thermal insulation in several layers in order to eliminate possible "cold bridges" and not to lose heat from the house and at the same time not to let the cold into the house (in winter).
The right windows are a big step towards a healthy and self-sufficient home. Nowadays, energy-efficient houses use two-chamber or three-chamber double-glazed windows with argon or krypton, gases with low thermal conductivity. Particular attention should be paid here to the tight abutment of the windows to the walls and additional insulation of window openings. An important nuance: it is advisable to place most of the windows on the south side of the house.
A complex ventilation system in a passive house is designed like this: air enters and leaves it through a system that has a heat exchanger. This design is equally effective in winter and summer conditions. In winter, cold air enters the recuperator, where warm air from the house heats up the fresh "outside" air and leaves the territory of the house. Fresh air enters the house, which has managed to warm up to the optimal room temperature.
In summer, the system works the same way, but with “reverse” temperatures. And only in rare cases, a room may require mini-heaters or small air conditioners - it depends on the special preferences of the owner.
Useful "little things" for construction: the correct location of the house, its shape, optimal surface colors and the use of economical sources of electricity
A passive house is a house that little things create. Let's compare with an ordinary house: we think about the color of its external walls as the last thing, because this characteristic is more aesthetic than rational. It is quite another matter - the house of the future, the walls and roof of which will certainly be white, for the most efficient heat transfer. You can opt for mirrored walls, which will also reduce the influence of external factors on the "weather in the house."
The right energy efficient home almost always "faces" south - then the sun will work for you. And do not forget about the large windows facing the south (but not more than 40% of the facade area). Windows to the west and east, on the contrary, should not be made huge, and to the north (if really necessary) we put very small windows.
The house of the future is a compact house. Here we are already making more complex calculations: to calculate the coefficient of the area of the enclosing surface, we need to divide the total area of the enclosing surface by the total internal volume of the premises. The lower the number, the better in the long run.
Let's move on to lighting. Conventional incandescent bulbs not only provide light, but also generate excessive heat. There is only one way out - to use LED blocks for lighting. They have high efficiency and low heat generation. But simply using LEDs is not saving. In a passive house, as a rule, motion and volume sensors are used, which react to whether there are people in the room. If there are no people, the electricity is cut off automatically. It is also possible to integrate multifunctional timers into the lighting system.
The distribution of these houses in Russia, near and far abroad
The house of the future is not a dream. This is proved by the example of the Filin family, who, together with the Danish company ROCKWOOL, built the energy-efficient house GREEN BALANCE. The name GREEN BALANCE reflects the main idea of the house - to be in harmony with nature and to reduce as much as possible the impact on the surrounding world, using available technologies. The energy efficient GREEN BALANCE consumes 60% less energy than any other house in the village of Nazaryevo, Moscow Region.
From the outside, the house looks like a strange combination of corners and curves - so original is the author's project of the architects. They were able to combine innovative design methods and energy efficiency technologies in their brainchild. At the same time, they managed to keep the cost of the commissioned object at an affordable level, which can be regarded as another victory of the “house of the future”.
At first glance, the inside of the house does not differ much from the neighbors. But a specialist will immediately understand that during the construction process, thermal insulation was carried out for the foundation, walls, roof; produced energy-efficient glazing, ventilation with a heat recuperator, calculated the optimal location to maximize the use of sunlight (for lighting and heating). All this will allow you to save 32 850 rubles annually only on heating!
The eagle owls have made the dream of a "green" home come true with a wise use of all resources. Saving - this is the goal towards which the future owners of the mansion went. Talented architects and professional technical support helped the happy family to reach their goal in the most optimal way.
Before the Russian dream of a passive house came true, the ROCKWOOL company managed to show itself in other countries. For example, in Denmark - at home.
The Research Center of this company has been recognized as one of the most energy efficient buildings in the world.
Also a good example is the reconstruction of a residential building in the Danish town of Nesterveda, built in the 70s of the last century. Adequate thermal insulation helped to reduce further heating costs by about 70%.
So, energy efficient houses are replacing ordinary houses in the same way that color photography replaced black and white at one time. The progress is obvious and unstoppable. Everyone's business is to stay in the past or build a house of the future for themselves, which in a couple of years will become a familiar “home of the present”.
Marina Zamyatina
