Bridging the domestic building fabric performance gap

Johnston, D; Farmer, DJ; Brooke-Peat, M; Miles-Shenton, D

Abstract

In the UK, it is recognised that there is often a discrepancy between the measured fabric thermal performance of
dwellings as-built and the predicted performance of the same dwellings and that the magnitude of this difference
in performance can be quite large. This paper presents the results of a number of in-depth building fabric
thermal performance tests that were undertaken on three case study dwellings located on two separate
Passivhaus developments in the UK; one masonry cavity and the other two timber-frame. The results from the
tests revealed that all of the case study dwellings tested performed very close to that predicted. This is in
contrast with other work that has been undertaken regarding the performance of the building fabric, which
indicates that a very wide range of performance exists in new build dwellings in the UK, and that the difference
between the measured and predicted fabric performance can be greater than 100%. Despite the small nonrandom
size of the sample, the results suggest that careful design coupled with the implementation of
appropriate quality control systems, such as those required to attain Passivhaus Certification, may be conducive
to delivering dwellings that begin to ‘bridge the gap’ between measured and predicted fabric performance.

Citation

Johnston, D., Farmer, D., Brooke-Peat, M., & Miles-Shenton, D. (2016). Bridging the domestic building fabric performance gap. Building Research and Information, 44(2), 147-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2014.979093

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Dec 3, 2014
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Feb 24, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2020
• Journal: Building Research & Information
• Print ISSN: 0961-3218
• Electronic ISSN: 1466-4321
• Publisher: Routledge
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 147-159
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2014.979093
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2014.979093
• Related Public URLs: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rbri20/current