Saint-Gobain Isover UK, one of the world’s leading manufacturer and innovator in mineral wool insulation, states that space and hot water heating accounts for almost 90% of a household’s energy costs but coincidentally 90% of that could be saved if the home was insulated to Passive House standards.

Data in Isover’s new guide to planning and realising the Multi-Comfort building of the future shows the energy demands of a typical one-family house can be as low as 15kWh/m²a for a very low energy home while its CO2 emissions can be just 2kg/m²a.  At the other end of the spectrum, the energy demands for a home with completely insufficient thermal insulation can be as high as 300kWh/m²a with CO2 emissions of 60kg/m²a. A home like this could use as much as 30 litres of heating oil per m² of living space per year. In between, a low-energy home could have energy demands of 40kWh/m²a and CO2 emissions of 10kg/m²a while a home with just insufficient thermal insulation (typically those built in the 1950s and 60s but ripe for renovation) up to 150kWh/m²a with CO2 emissions of 30kg/m²a.

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