FAQ

The low-energy house can function in the same way as the passive one, just with a difference, that it just did not get to the required values of a passive standard. The most common cases are the family houses, a type of a bungalow, where there are large cooling areas (a floor and a ceiling) and a low wall in a southern side.

Many developers offer such houses in our country and from a word, low-energy, became a marketing gimmick. In a practice, it is almost impossible to reach the parameters of the low-energy house without the system of the mechanical ventilation with recuperation.

The practice shows that the price of the low-energy house is increased about 3-10% in comparison with a classical house knowing that in this house, you can save about 40-60% in heating per year.

Yes, it is, but principally it follows that because of the controlled ventilation, we should leave out the open fireplaces. The fireplaces are more used in the low-energy houses than in the passive houses. It is so because of the lower requests on a standard. Anyway, it is an extra comfort and it costs more money.

On the contrary, every passive house must be tailored to a given environment, a locality and an orientation to the cardinal points and so no serial production can be created. The architecture of the passive houses definitely does not tie with the principles which are necessary for achieving the given parameters. You can have the passive house which you are not able to recognize from a surrounded old built-up area or you can have a house in a style of a hi-tech. It depends on your demands and the financial possibilities.

There are many myths and legends that it is forbidden to air, that´s why a man does not feel a smell of a blooming meadow in the summer months…It is not so. Anytime you want, you can open a window but you do not need it because the nature of the house is so comfortable and you do not definitely need to create any draft. In the passive houses, it is designed a combination of the fixed and openable windows. The fixed ones , because these windows have better thermal qualities (smaller surface of a window frame), and the openable ones for cleaning or when the power stations stop a distribution of energy.

Yes it is, but principally it follows that because of the controlled ventilation and the air-conditioning, we should leave out the open fireplaces. In a house with a hot-air heating, you, of course, do not find a chimney. So, a construction of the fireplace means a lot of extra money.

The practice shows that the price of the passive house is increased about 6-15% in comparison with a classical house. With a simple mathematics, you can count a return, when you know, that for heating, in a comparison with a standard house, you save more than 80% in heating with the passive house. Certainly, it is not possible to say a price of a comfort by the numbers.

Heating of the water can be solved via any common ways. For lowering the need of the heat for preparation of the hot water, we can use the solar collectors in a combination with an accumulation basin. A mechanism for preparation of the hot water is often connected with the mechanism of the air-conditioning system into one compact element.