The health and comfort are the most important elements for the Passive House design, the excellent indoor air quality is indispensable. But this can only be achieved if stale air is exchanged with fresh outdoor air at regular intervals. This can definitely not be done by just opening windows twice a day.
Ventilation will work accurately only if stale air is removed constantly from the kitchen, bathrooms, and all other rooms with air pollution. Fresh air has to be supplied to the living room, children’s room, sleeping rooms, and workrooms to substitute the removed air. The system will supply exactly as much fresh air as is needed for comfort and for good indoor air quality; only outdoor air will be supplied – no recirculated air. This will lead to a high level of indoor air quality. Read more about:

• Basic: Different types of ventilation
• Webinar: Ventilation Systems and Technologies
• Window ventilation: Passive House - 6 reasons why you still need opening windows
• Ventilation in Summer: Importance of summer ventilation in Passive House buildings
• Certified ventilation systems

The basic principle of Passive House ventilation moist, stale air is extracted from the kitchen and the bathrooms(extract air) while fresh air (supply air) flows into the living areas.

The ventilation units provide clean, pollen-free and dust-free air while eliminating excess moisture and odours. In the winter,the fresh supply air is preheated and can thus be brought into the building at a temperature of 16°C and the heat can remain in the building. On hot summer days, on the other hand, the supply air is cooled (almost) to room air temperature by the heat recovery. The high-quality ventilation unit ensures that the supply and exhaust air ducts in the heat exchanger are leak proof, so that fresh and used air is never mixed. The high-quality ventilation unit saves much more energy through the prevention of heat losses than they use to run. Check Component certificate criteria and certified ventilation units to see all the high-efficient components.

• Simulation-based comparison of energy demand, CO2-emissions and Life Cycle Cost of different HVAC systems for Passive Houses
• Comparison of the energy performance of ventilation systems using passive vs. active heat recovery
• Building services systems: comparison of supply air/extract air system with HR and exhaust air system
• Frost protection for ventilation heat recovery

The appropriate air flow rate in the ventilation system is to ensure the proper functioning of the system and to achieve comfortable indoor conditions. It is essential that not only the planned volume flow rates are achieved in individual parts or rooms of the building, but also that a balanced mass flow between the exhaust and extract air is ensured. Read her to know how you can control Air volume in the ventilation system.

• Flow rate adjustment in ventilation systems
• Use of ventilation units with rotary heat exchangers
• Automatic volume flow balancing in ventilation units
• Differentiation between Vv and Vn50 values (Vv – Air reference volume of the ventilation system)
• Cascade ventilation – air exchange efficiency in living rooms without separate supply air inlets and exhaust air outlets
• Optimization of dwelling floor plan configuration for cascade ventilation
• Webinar: Active volume flow control as a passive component in a Passive House – a new development

Planning a ventilation system by yourself is workable, here you learn how you can build ventilation system step by step.

• Tool: Ventilation tools
• Tool: How to insert an active system in PHPP version 9
• Integration of ventilation duct
• Optimization of dwelling floor plan configuration for cascade ventilation
  
• Recommendations for dimensioning ventilation duct network
  

• Introduction – Heat Recovery Ventilation in Residential Buildings
• Solutions for cost-effective residential buildings: home ventilation with heat recovery

Ventilation in non-residentail building has been a topic for the Research Group for Cost-effective Passive Houses.

You can find the original publications in German here: Ventilation in Passive House - non-residential buildings
The selected topics are translated into English, you can find them here

• Good Indoor Air Quality! Ventilation concepts for energy retrofits!
• Retrofitting ventilation systems in non-residential buildings
• Summer situations in refurbished non-residential buildings
• Crosstalk silencers
• Façade Integration of Ventilation Units for Deep Renovation
• Ventilation Ducts within the insulation layer
• How should I ventilate at home?
• Component Award 2016: Affordable ventilation solutions for retrofits
• Brochure: Ventilation concepts for energy retrofits

• Webinar: Ventilation practices for schools and residential buildings
• Ventilation in commercial kitchens – concepts, components and air routing
• Aspects of efficient ventilation in hospitals

Read more about Building Services

Certified ventilation systems