Tools and methodsFROM SCRIBBLED CHEAT SHEETS TO HELPFUL TOOLS

André Harrmann | Harrmann Consulting | 15kwh10w.comVancouver, Canada + Leipzig, Germany

Too much informationà The Passive House Reference SheetFor many, entry to the professional Passive House worldstarts with a CEPH course and exam. Quality training andpreparation for the exam as well as for first projectsare important. There are many very good providersand publications available to support this.

But open book exams are tricky – thePassive House exam is a battleagainst the clock with not much timeto skim through available material.Early during the preparation formy own test, I started writing

down formulas, terminology, acronyms,symbols and all kind of notes. Thanksto bad handwriting and my desire tobe well prepared for the exam, Itranscribed my notes into a digitalformat. This allowed me toexperiment with a few options topresent the material. After the exam

I kept on improving thedocument and shared it with others.

Less searchingà More Passive HouseThe Reference Sheet andUnit Converter arecurrently available inEnglish only (metric andimperial versions asdownloadable PDF), with astrong focus on NorthAmerican user groups.

Too many unitsà The Passive House Converter ToolUnique to the North American construction industry is theneed to work with imperial and metric units – even inCanada where metrication started back in the 1970s. TheReference Sheet offers conversion tables.

ReferencesHarrmann, André: Tools for Passive House Exam andDaily Use. Harrmann Consulting, Canada & Germany.www.15kwh10w.com/passive-house-tools/, January 2017

Now the Reference Sheet is much more than just acomforting cheat sheet for the exam. The concise guidepresents the relevant terminology and information in sucha way that the document can serve as the initial go-to toolto look up information when working on a project orlearning about Passive House. References for furtherreading are included.

I hope my brief introduction to the tools will initiate aproductive discussion which eventually leads to furtherdevelopments. The result might be cooperation with othersand the development of more customized versions of bothtools for specific markets, in different languages and foradditional software platforms. I have already receivedrequests to add more conversions, such as for lightingpower density, cooling metrics and equipment efficiencies.

A Unit Converter for mobile devices was added foraccurate metric-imperial conversions on the go:U-values, R-values + Heating Demand (kWh/m2.a,kBtU/ft2.a, kWh/ft2.a) + Heat Load (W/m2, BtU/h.ft2) +Vapour Diffusion (Sd-value, metric & US-Perm) +Temperature (°C, °F, K)