Passive House - Zero Energy Buildings

Build your PASSIV HOUSE or ZERO ENERGIE HOUSE with AAC (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) to the highest European Standards

MULTIPOR-SUPER LIGHT-HIGH INSULATION VALUE

• Thermal Passive House Brochure
• MULTIPOR Brochure | Mineral Insulation Blocks
• Thermal Insulation Borchure
• MULTIPOR R-Values
• Air Tightness to Avoid Structural Damage
• AAC vs SIP

AAC is a mineral based building material that is a single wall system without any cold joints (heat transfer bridges). AAC has fulfilled the 2002 Energy savings code in Europe.

MHE-International is now adding EUROPOR a super lightweight AAC Insulator, which has an outstanding Thermal Conductivity of 0.045 W/mK.  AAC alone has a Thermal Conductivity of 0.08 W/mk.
A well-insulated house or apartment is extremely important, both in terms of your own budget and the environment, which affects us all. Also, there are strict legal rules and checks concerning thermal insulation. An overall thermal insulation level of K55 applies to the dwelling as a whole.

A heat transmission coefficient “U” of less than 0.27 W/m2K must be observed for the outer walls.
For the flat roof or pitched Roof

 

High Insulation Value
To satisfy the conditions imposed in most European countries, the U-values of the wall must be less than 0.6 W/m2K. The tables below give the U-values for the various types of MHE-AAC walls. In each case, these values are so low that extra insulation material becomes superfluous and the overall insulation level K55 is easily achieved.

Is it still possible to build without additional insulation material?

You can simply use MHE-AAC to build a wall of traditional thickness without having to install any additional layer(s) of insulation. A double wall consisting of MHE-AAC blocks of 8” AAC wall and 4” MULTIPOR exceeds the current European energy savings code and is a clear PASSIVE HOUSE or ZERO ENERGY Wall system.

MHE is working closely with European window and Door manufactures in order to create the most airtight and all around well insulated Building Shell.
Example, a 12” AAC wall and a 4” MULTIPOR shell achieves an overall heat transfer coefficient of 0.26 W/m2K. This value satisfied the European Building Standard requirement of U – Value = 0.27 W/m2K

Effective insulation
Not only does the insulation of a house have to comply with all the applicable regulations; it also has to be correctly put in place on site. Unfortunately this is not always the case. To be genuinely effective, both the AAC wall system and the MULTIPOR system need to be installed to an exact specification. Also all windows and doors as well as any other openings like chimneys have to be included in the system so well, that no thermal bridges occur.
You can see standard building systems, like CMU and wood framing, leaving the complete system so often poorly installed, leading to cold bridges or moisture seeping in, resulting in damp walls.

MHE-AAC solution
No insulation material in the cavity, the insulation is inherit. No risk of cold bridges or water seeping in. No chance of damaging the insulation material. This system offers 100% effective insulation for the whole lifetime of the building

The slightest break in the continuity of the insulation results in cold air circulating between the inner leaf and the insulation. Not only can this lead to a drop in the insulation level of the wall, it can also produce thermal bridges. These cold bridges can have serious repercussions for the building in question (internal condensation, the appearance of damp spots on the walls). MHE-AAC can offer an effective solution to this problem. MHE-AAC is insulating in itself and there is no need to fit additional insulation. No more problems caused by poorly installed insulation.

By building with MHE-AAC, you always get a long-lasting insulation that is also 100% effective. The insulation values of MHE-AAC blocks exceed those of the strictest regulations, and this automatically leads to additional savings on heating and cooling costs. All without having to pay for your insulation!
Apart from the insulation values, which directly impact energy use, it is also important to consider the level of comfort and quality of life in the dwelling. MHE-AAC distinguishes itself with its exceptional qualities.

Thermal inertia
During very warm periods (or periods with large amounts of sunshine), a well-insulated dwelling with good thermal inertia remains pleasantly cool during the day and maintains at a comfortable temperature at night.
As soon as the ambient temperature rises, any building material will absorb a certain amount of heat. This amount of heat per square feet is known as the thermal capacity (B). The greater the mass of the material, the higher the value. A concrete block has high thermal capacity due to its mass, but low thermal inertia because it is not insulating. To achieve good thermal inertia, the external wall must have a high thermal capacity (B) so that they absorb large amounts of heat. They must also be insulating so that the heat does not pass through to the other side of the wall too quickly. The ratio A=B must therefore be as high as possible.
This can only be achieved if the material used is both insulating and heavy. A “pure” insulation material has a very low mass and cannot store up the heat. In fierce sunshine, this then gives rise to the “caravan effect”, whereby it becomes unbearably hot in the interior area within a very short space of time. MHE-AAC has the properties of an insulation material but also a considerable mass (between 9492 lbs/sqft and 16611 lbs/sqft). It therefore satisfies all the conditions for creating good thermal inertia. Thus, it appears that the A-value of MHE-AAC is higher than that of other common construction materials. If the thermal inertia is higher (high A-value) this results in a large phase displacement and thermal damping.
Two major conditions for enjoying ideal comfort during the summer months:

• With a large phase displacement F (the difference in time between the maximum temperatures inside and outside), the effect of the midday sun is only felt in the evening. Therefore, to maintain a constant temperature you only need to use ventilation at night.
• With high thermal conductivity (the difference between the maximum outside temperature and the maximum inside temperature), a heat peak of 104°F outside is converted to a heat peak of 72°F inside after the phase displacement F.

MHE-AAC performs exceptionally on both levels.
The comfort zone lies between tc = 66°F and tc = 72°F. In a room with a surface temperature of 15°C, a feeling of comfort (tc = 20°C) is only reached if the air temperature is 25°C.
Since we know that increasing the air temperature by 41°F raises energy consumption by 40%, the importance of a higher surface temperature immediately becomes clear. Thanks to its insulating structure, MHE-AAC contributes to a higher surface temperature, thereby making it possible to save on heating costs and guarantee optimum comfort in the dwelling at all times.

No Cold Bridges
A cold bridge is a zone where the insulation of a house is weaker. If there are not too many cold bridges, they have little impact on annual energy consumption. Nevertheless, they can have disastrous consequences. If the surface temperature of the walls drops below a certain temperature (57°F under normal conditions), damp and mould problems can arise due to air condensing on the wall.  These cold bridges and the associated condensation problems can easily be avoided by using MHE-AAC U-blocks, U-lintels or normal lintels as well as MHE roofs and floor systems.

 

PASSIVE HOUSE –ZERO ENERGY BUILDINGS
Now you also save on CO2 pollution by lowering your heating/cooling cost by more than half.
MHE-ACC has one important property, what non of the traditional building materials have, and this is ISOTROPIE, which means, the material has in all Directions the same properties, which is the basis for airtight and buildings with no cold bridges.

Our cell structure is so unique, that our building air pockets give the same thermal properties in all directions. We all know that air is a good insulator, Therefore MHE-AAC is the only choice to build the a PASSIVE HOUSE or a

ZERO ENERGY HOME
Thermal performance of AAC wall, Floor and roof system provides an innovative combination of excellent thermal conductivity, Thermal mass and low air infiltration.
Let’s talk about equivalent R-value.

An 8” AAC block with 3/8 Stucco and 3/16 plaster can be compared to a wood farming structure with a framing 16” o.c , 5/8” stucco, ½” plywood and a R20.4 fiberglass insulation finished with ½ drywall and to an 8” CMU wall with 5/8 stucco R-8.6 Rigid Insulation, wood furring and also finished with a 1/2 “Drywall. All those said, for those calculations the diffused radiation was used only. So when we apply the direct radiation (sun) then AAC would even perform better. We also need to look at the EPI (Energy Performance Index) to meet the thermal efficiency. We compared an 8” AAC home with an R-11 wood frame home and 8” CMU home with R-5 insulation. We all used the same windows. The EPI index cannot exceed the value of 100, AAC received a value of 84.4 the wood frame house received a value 91.85 and the CMU house received 89.71 this shows that AAC is 10% more energy efficient than wood house and 5% more energy efficient than CMU house.

However to comply with the residential energy efficiency code we rotated the building in 45 degree increments to re examine the efficiency. The resulting EPI values indicated that a house built with AAC complies with the code regardless of the building orientation while the other wall systems would fail

.It is important to remember that thermal performance of any building material is the result of several factors and may not be assumed either effective or ineffective on the basis of any one of those factors.

Basically let’s look at 3 definitions, Thermal conductivity “K” which measures the conductivity of the building material. The major factors is the density, AAC with 32 pcf “pound per cubic foot” of design density weight, performs 10 times better than 150 pcf concrete and as half as good as polystyrene insulation board. The R- Value however depends on the material Thickness and the density.  The R-value shows the resistance of a material to conduct or allow heat flow. Here again an 32 pcf AAC material, 8” thick, performs again 10 times better than a 150 pcf concrete wall 8” thick. But their 8” AAC wall performs up to 70% as good as 3 ½ batt insulation.

Now let’s look at the heat transmission coefficient U-value, which is defined as how much heat transmits through 1 sqft of a building envelope in 1 hour. Those results are matching the same outcome. Like the R-value but as soon as we look at the specific heat, which shows how much heat is required to raise 1 lbs of material by 1 degree Fahrenheit it shows clearly that it takes 20% more heat to raise the temperature of an AAC building than of an concrete building and it takes 35% more heat to heat up an AAC building then an 3 ½ batted insulated wood frame house. Lets look at the heat capacity, which will shows us how much heat can be stored we call it “thermal mass”, so we want to see in the winter time how much of heated air our building can store. Here we measure it again in BTU/ sqft per degree F.

An 8” AAC wall can store the produced warm air in our buildings 4 times better than an 8” 150 pcf concrete wall.

Lets look again at the thermal mass benefit concept, “steady R-value” for example our values, where we assume that the temperature on both sides of the wall is constant for a period of time which is very unlikely, actual conditions show a temperature change on the outside during the day, but inside we do not want to have any changes. AAC reduces the temperature transfer, So that a 30degree F exterior temperature change will not affect the interior temperature. This is based due to the shown excellent heat capacity of AAC which causes a reversal in the direction of heat transfer, back to the outside within a 24 hour period.

Subsequently, the total heat gain through the AAC wall system is significantly less than Low thermal mass wall systems such as a framed wall. In this case, the combination of the heat capacity and the excellent thermal resistance exceeds the performance of a high “Steady State “R-value.  This dynamic process is known as the “thermal mass benefit” or “Mass-Enhanced “R-value.

Again as we seen it takes 0.25 BTU to heat 1 lbs of AAC by 1 degree F “specific heat”
So by having 32pcf it would require 5.4 BTU to heat an 8”AAC wall 1 degree F.
In a test, we measured the temperature fluctuation  over a 24 hour period to a west wall painted black to increase surface temperature , the outside wall temperature fluctuated by 126 Degrees F and the inside temperature remained at a pleasant 68degrees F.

Here again the “time lag” with the heat capacity gives us such excellent results.
Not to forget is the air tightness, AAC has a 1/8” thin set which creates the air tightness but CMU has a ¼ thick mortar joint and air can easily escape there.

Also more dense materials are decreasing the effective R-values.

So let’s look at the wall system and not at the separate single materials only.

Also, water content, condensation is a factor of the effective insulation value 5% TO 10% water content in any material can decrease the effective insulation value by more than 15%.

MHE-International your partner in regards PASSIVE HOUSE and ZERO ENERGY BUILDINGS
We are working with European leaders for Passive House windows and Doors and well as Geothermal heating/Cooling and Solar Energy-RENEWAL ENERGY the future for our world
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