The simple answer to this question is: YES
There are many reasons why there needs to be at least one opening window in each habitable room within a Passive House. One of the best options is our exceptional range of tilt & turn windows, due to its ease of maintenance and overall performance. Read below to review the many reasons why windows need to be opened within a Passive House property.
1. During warm periods, opening your windows is the easiest, cheapest, most effective and environmentally friendly way to cool your house, due to utilising purge or cross ventilation. Of course, this applies to all types of climates, such as the UK, where the night temperatures in Summer are often below 20 Celsius degrees.
2. People don’t like to miss the opportunity to use their windows to connect to the outside world, so they strongly prefer to choose when they keep their windows open or closed.
3. Cleaning a tilt & turn window is much easier than cleaning a fixed one.
4. After monitoring post-occupancy evaluation results, we have concluded that there is no risk of not having a sufficiently warm house or having a much higher energy demand if property owners keep their windows open. Of course, the only side effect here would be the slightly higher energy bills.
5. Even during cold periods, it is nice to sometimes have the windows open in order to allow for air to ventilate the interior space, especially in the case of a party or an assembly. (Not to mention the impact of COVID-19 on this aspect and the importance of purging the stale or even contaminated air).
6. An opening window could also even save someone’s life in the case of a fire or panic situation (such as earthquakes), which would require a quick and easy escape route.
Based on all these above, it is useful to emphasise that at least one opening window per room used for living is a prerequisite for Passive House buildings in order to be certified.
To find out more about our Passive House suitable product range, simply get in touch with Internorm today or find your local Internorm partner!