Your guide to Passivhaus Certification in Australia

Passivhaus Classic is the original holistic construction certification standard, enabling Certified PH professionals to optimise building geometry based on the proposed usage and location of the building.

Built on a set of 5 building science principles—airtightness, thermal insulation, mechanical ventilation heat recovery, high-performance windows and thermal bridge minimisation—Passivhaus buildings exhibit remarkable levels of occupant comfort and energy efficiency. We call this a “fabric-first” design philosophy.

Additionally, Passivhaus Certification ensures that buildings perform as designed through stringent quantitative modelling, all but eliminating the huge performance gap often seen with traditional approaches to construction.

Building on the original standard, Passivhaus Plus provides an opportunity for clients to further reduce energy consumption while integrating renewable energy. The main difference between Plus and the original standard is that, to achieve Passivhaus Plus certification, the building must use renewable energy sources to generate enough energy to sustain its operations each year.

Passivhaus Premium is the epitome of sustainable construction. Buildings that reach this certification standard produce a significant amount of excess energy through renewable means, going beyond the typical net-zero goal into net-positive energy generation.

While it’s a challenging certification to aim for, ambitious clients, designers and Passivhaus teams can set a new industry standard by aiming for this goal.

The EnerPHit standard is Passivhaus’ answer to the challenges involved in retrofitting existing buildings. While achieving this certification still requires application of the 5 key building science principles, there are slightly higher limits when it comes to acceptable energy demand. This is because, unlike new builds, designers can’t fully optimise things like building orientation or structure.

However, EnerPHit-certified buildings still produce the desired outcomes of the Passivhaus standard—increased occupant comfort and incredible energy efficiency. It’s also possible to aim for EnerPHit Plus or Premium certification depending on the addition of renewable energy generation in the building.

Note: There are pathways for staged retrofits to achieve EnerPHit certification through the use of an EnerPHit Retrofit Plan and pre-certification as a Passivhaus or EnerPHit project.

Just like design, engineering and construction costs, certification costs are not fixed. Passivhaus Building Certifiers are free to set their own price based on a combination of aspects including:

The size and complexity of the project.

Whether or not the Passive House Designer/Consultant and/or builder has previously submitted a project for certification (the project team’s prior experience indicates the level of guidance a certifier will need to provide throughout the review process).

Whether or not the project has been modelled in SketchUp/DesignPH. In our experience, it’s more time-consuming to review projects that don’t use SketchUp/DesignPH — so much so that some certifiers will no longer accept projects that aren’t modelled in SketchUp/DesignPH.

Additionally, Passivhaus Building Certifiers must pay a fixed annual registration fee to the Passivhaus Institute, regardless of how many certifications they do per year. The Passive House Institute also charges Passive House Building Certifiers a per-project based on project type (this includes one plaque).

Additional plaques can be ordered for multiple residence dwellings, roughly $110 per plaque (depending on the AUD/EU exchange rate), with a discount for 5 or 10 units.

Certifier scope of services document created by UK Passivhaus trust provides a great explanation of what certifiers do and how we work with designers view here.