The Building Time Constant: Your Key to Thermal Resilience

Among the many parameters than play a role in the thermal behavior of a building, whether or not it is built to be a Passive House, the time constant is one of the least known ones. Nontheless, this parameter influences…

The potential benefit of an early ‘Blower Door Test’.

In December we ran a 'Type B' Blower Door Test on our CasaClima Class A project, "Conte Re", under construction near Albinea (in the province of Reggio Emilia, Italy). Many of our colleagues wondered why we decided to run the…

Passive house: new construction or renovation?

In our blog, we are dedicating a large number of articles to deep energy retrofits, on one hand, and Passive Houses on the other. However, these two topics are not necessarily distinct from one another: here, we explain why.

Mold and condensation problems

Mold and condensation on the interior surfaces of a house's thermal envelope is a self-evident proof of poor quality and lack of comfort. It can happen on walls, roof, slabs and so on. These phenomena are symptoms of degrading building…

What is a ‘thermal bridge’?

In our articles, as we write about Passive Houses, thermal comfort and energy efficiency, we often assign great importance to the term 'thermal bridge'. We'll try to explain here what all the fuss is about.

What is the ‘thermal envelope’ of a building?

In our articles about building energy efficiency, we often use the term 'thermal envelope': let's define what we mean by that.