• Welcome to the Zero Carbon and Passivehouse
• Introduction: Global Warming, Passivehouses and Zero Carbon
  • 'Zero carbon'
• New Passivehouses
  • Passivehouse Principles
  • Scandinavian Homes Passivehouses
    • Single-Storey Detached Dwellings
      • The Atlantica Range
      • The Baltica Range
      • The Nordica Range
      • The Hibernia Range
    • Two-Storey Detached Dwellings
    • Semi-Detached and Terraced Dwellings
  • Large Passivehouses
    • Care Homes
• Building Renovation - IRULES™
  • IRULES™ - Incremental Renovation to Ultra-Low Energy Standard
• Passivehouse Heating and Ventilation
• Software
  • Meteonorm
• Energy Performance Certificates
  • What's an EPC?
  • How to get an EPC
• Get off the grid!
• Passivehouse Events
• Passivehouse Literature and Downloads
• Niels' Take On...
  • Niels' Take On Wind Turbines
• About Us
• Contact Us

Scandinavian Homes Passivehouses

The Scandinavian Homes range of dwellings are equally well suited to the production of 'affordable dwellings' and high-level individual houses. They range from compact terraced houses, over bungalows to extended individually designed villas. Most of the designs can be certified as passivehouses, and they form an excellent basis for zero carbon dwellings. They are among the most pleasant and healthy houses to live in that you will find anywhere - and offer extremely good value for money.

The walls, windows, doors and many other components of a Scandinavian Home are manufactured in Sweden, using top quality Swedish and Finnish timber (produced through sustainable forestry of course) combined with the highest quality of workmanship. Where components of a suitable quality exist locally, these will be sourced near the build site in order to avoid increasing the amount of primary energy embedded into the construction. This is true e.g. for roofs placed outside the airtight envelope of the house (whereas roof structures forming part of the airtight envelope are manufactured in Sweden and delivered with the house).

The Ideas...

The climate in Sweden, Norway and Finland - and to a lesser degree in Denmark - can be extremely harsh with frequent temperatures of around -20°C on cold winter days, often accompanied by winter storms. For this reason the insulation of dwellings has enjoyed a prominent position in the minds of builders since long before the age of the Vikings, leading to many interesting solutions across the centuries, including for example meter-thick roofs made from seaweed, a contruction technique still prominent on one small windblown Danish island.

Thus, it is no coincidence that the Scandinavian countries are in the forefront when it comes to developing insulation products and techniques, and that the first steps towards the current passivehouse standard were taken at the university in Lund in southern Sweden, extending normal Scandinavian practices and construction techniques. Homes in Scandinavia in general focus on energy-efficiency. Scandinavian Homes push this to today's limit of technology to deliver state-of-the-art dwellings using ultra-insulated building elements like thick walls and roofs, and triple-glazed argon-filled windows with coated glass, airtightness in combination with controlled ventilation and heat recovery removing the heat from used air before expelling it, and various types of active solar gain, e.g. for water heating.

Each individual house it fine-tuned to the climate for which it is built, protecting against wind and rain and drawing maximum benefit from the sun in terms of orientation on the plot where the house is erected, shading and window placement and sizing. The dwellings are available in all kinds of sizes, designed according to individual wishes inside Scandinavian Homes' modular system comprising structures of one or two stories with or without rooms in the roof, L-extensions, garages, etc.

This construction technique allows for large open-plan designs because the whole house is always pleasantly warm, and load-bearing walls are not normally required inside the dwelling, splitting up the space. In fact, if you have never been inside a passivehouse you have no idea how comfortable a house can be!

Passivehouses do not require a central heating system. Actually, they normally don't require a space heating system at all - even in Scandinavian climates. To be on the safe side we normally install electric floor heating in the highly insulated floor. This heating provision is not normally used - or even connected to the electricity supply - but it is nice to know it is there in case the climate changes for the worse over the lifetime of the building.

A fundamental rule in passivehouse design is to keep the shape of buildings simple because complicated shapes inevitably bring about a larger outside wall area exposed to the weather and hence to heat losses. For that reason you will see that Scandinavian Homes display a clean, straightforward architecture using either external wood-cladding or render, neutral, white or coloured, roofs with solar collectors and covered by tiles or slates, and an interior dominated by various types of wood, tinted, oiled or simply untreated. This does not mean that you can't use different materials and because the houses are fundamentally open plan you can in effect design the interior more or less as you wish, the options mainly limited by technical requirements. Please browse the site to see different solutions and lay-outs - and be inspired.

Scandinavian Homes in the UK

Zero-Carbon Solutions represent Scandinavian Homes in the UK and deliver these to builders and end customers in a variety of configurations:

• Turn-key - you get a fully finished home ready to move into on your plot of land. We will help you with the planning process (and even finding a plot in case you don't already have one) and following planning permission will deliver the whole build including foundation, fittings and appliances as per agreed specifications. From planning permission to finished house normally takes around three-four months, depending on the size and complexity of the building and installations. We deliver full UK architectural and technical services to help you design your home exactly the way you want it.
• Weathertight Envelope on Our Foundation - we supply a weather and airtight building ready for first fix and roofing tiles or slates and outer cladding/rendering on a standard passivehouse foundation, including blower door test. You are responsible for finishing the dwelling using local traders and mostly locally sourced materials. That said, we would typically deliver cladding and rendering materials, ecological wood treatment materials and paints, ventilation and heating system and kitchen and bathroom fittings (because it is very difficult to source components of an acceptable quality in the UK). When you plan your order we will supply you with a spreadsheet enabling you to make informed decisions, and compare our prices with those of local products and services. From planning permission to delivery normally takes around one month, depending on where in the planning process you place a final order. The actual on-site build takes around two weeks.
• Weathertight Envelope on Your Foundation - we supply a weather and airtight building ready for first fix and roofing tiles or slates and outer cladding/rendering on your foundation produced to our specifications, including site preparation. We do not recommend this configuration in case you aim to attain passivehouse standard. Building to passivehouse quality is difficult and the quality of the foundation work essential. The horizontal perimeter tolerance for the foundation is +0/-5 mm overall and along walls, and the vertical tolerance ±5mm along the perimeter supporting load bearing walls. We recommend the foundation team to be trained by us before undertaking this type of foundation work. You are responsible for finishing the dwelling using local traders and mostly locally sourced materials. That said, we would typically deliver cladding and rendering materials, ecological wood treatment materials and paints, ventilation and heating system and kitchen and bathroom fittings (because it is very difficult to source components of an acceptable quality in the UK). When you plan your order we will supply you with a spreadsheet enabling you to make informed decisions, and compare our prices with those of local products and services. From planning permission to delivery normally takes around one month, depending on where in the planning process you place a final order. The actual on-site build takes four to five days.
• "House on a Trailer" - We deliver wall assemblies (including pre-installed doors and windows), ventilation and heating system, and whatever else is agreed, on a trailer for your staff to assemble. This option is only available after your teams of workers have completed appropriate training by our company.

We currently experience a global shortage of high quality timber suitable for construction purposes, so please contact us as early as possible to secure a Scandinavian Home! Only a limited number will be available for construction in the UK. (This is not a sales ploy, simply a statement of fact).