Thursday 19th January 2017: 10.21am.
Some interesting thermal results from the Galway passive house yesterday. First is that a thermal camera is deceptive at telling you how well insulated a house is. Below is the system built timber passive house we saw in infra red and visible, the temperature range goes between 3.0 C and 10.4 C, the walls are clearly 8.3 C. The third picture is my house last night, temperature range is nearly the same 3.0 C to 10.6 C with the walls at 8.2 C. Basically the same right? Even the Windows look about the same, yet his are state of the art triple glazed with argon fill and dual IR coating, mine are cheap double glazed with air and at best single IR coating. Well the difference is the internal temperature. The passive house was a very even 22 - 23 C inside, my house last night the front inside of the house was an uneven 14 - 18 C so all that passive house insulation basically gains you 4 degrees, plus evenness of temperature. The last photo is my back window last night onto the family room where we run the radiators at maximum output all the time to get the temperature up to about 18 - 22 C depending on where you stand, and you can see the ineffectiveness of the glazing now, the glass is clearly much warmer than the frame, whereas in the passive house the glass is clearly much cooler than the frame.
