Certification of passive houses: A Western European overview

According to the popular definition, passive houses have to reach a target energy demand for heating less than 15 kWh per square meter and per year. This criterion is used as a basis for quality assurance procedures and certification of passive house projects. This paper identifies the experiences in several western European countries concerning passive house certification, and hence the control of quality of the design process, the construction process, and the post construction inspection and testing of passive houses. Certification and quality assurance initiatives from Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the U.K. and Ireland are compared with preceding initiatives in Austria, Northern Italy, Switzerland and Germany. It is recognized that with the current state of the emerging passive house market, passive house verification is necessary on a project level, but that it is still difficult to introduce certification of actors and processes in many countries. An open market and competition for certificationOTB Research Institut