Blawarthill Place is a new Passivhaus development of 15 affordable homes, including two blocks of cottage flats and three blocks of terraced bungalows on the site of the former Blawarthill Hospital. The highly energy efficient dwellings are designed to suit ambulant disabled, and one unit is fully wheelchair accessible. Their high levels of insulation, good indoor air quality and low carbon footprint will help our client, Yoker Housing Association comply with regulatory requirements whilst assisting with Scotland’s climate change targets.

As Passivhaus Consultants on this project, Carbon Futures made recommendations to the project’s architects, allowing the original house designs to be adapted to meet Passivhaus Classic criteria. This also included producing bespoke Psi-value Calculations to account for the twin-stud timber frame system utilised on the project.  In addition to this, our team also completed SAP Calculations, U-value Calculations and issued the development’s Energy Performance Certificates and Sustainability Labels to confirm compliance with Section 6 (Energy) and Section 7 (Sustainability) of the Scottish Building Regulations.

Passivhaus is a voluntary international energy performance standard for buildings. The quality assured standard provides a methodology for achieving low energy building design, resulting in comfortable buildings, that use around 50-75% less energy than a standard new-build home in the UK. The standard consists of super insultation, triple glazing, stringent levels of airtightness, minimal thermal bridging, optimised solar gain, efficient building form and Passivhaus Certified Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR).

This project was built using a Passivhaus Certified 300mm thick twin stud timber frame system, which uses plywood gussets to connect the inner and outer timber frames. The system was filled with EPS beads (Eco-Bead Platinum), ensuring that the panels were fully filled, with no air gaps.

Other elements of the timber frame include: