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Passive wooden houses: how to achieve energy savings

This image depicts a prefab passive house built with green‑building techniques.

With our passive houses you can save up to 45‑50 % on your household energy consumption. Thanks to wood’s high energy efficiency and excellent thermal insulation, heating and cooling systems are required far less often over time.

This allows energy consumption to be reduced by up to 70 % compared with a traditional house.

In this article we’ll discuss what it means to own a class‑A house, why a passive home saves you money, the requirements for calling it such, and how in Italy the green‑building market has changed over the last few years—thanks in part to environmental regulations and the use of eco‑sustainable products.
 

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What does it mean to have a passive house? 

Owning a passive house means being able to meet your energy needs entirely on your own, working to improve your home’s energy performance.

This involves a set of elements that fall under the building’s energy classification, such as the building envelope, windows, photovoltaic system, and so on.

Not surprisingly, choosing “class‑A energy houses” is a solution for those seeking a reduction in energy consumption and consequently a clear saving on their bills.


Passive houses and energy savings in Italy

Passive houses were born in Sweden at the end of the 1970s and began to spread across Northern Europe. In Italy they appeared in the early 2000s in Trentino‑Alto Adige, yet compared with Northern European countries, Italy is far behind, because unfortunately most Italian buildings fall into class G, the worst energy class.

This happens because many of the necessary materials are still little used locally; some have to be imported from countries where passive‑house construction is much more advanced—Sweden, Germany, etc.—where building technologies are further along.

Only in recent years has the idea of class‑A houses gained traction in Italy, largely because in 2010 the European Directive kicked off Legislative Decree 192/2005 in Italy—measures adopted to reduce energy consumption in the EU and promote wider use of renewable‑energy sources.

Today, passive houses and nearly‑zero‑energy buildings are no longer a fantasy but a reality that is attracting a growing number of people for reasons of energy savings and environmental responsibility.


Why do class‑A houses save you money?

A class‑A home saves you money through lower bills. A building with a high energy class brings tax incentives and allows you to obtain self‑produced energy without resorting to external suppliers. This is also possible with a prefabricated wooden house, precisely because wood is an excellent insulator with a high level of breathability, providing excellent heat radiation without dispersion.


Requirements for a class‑A energy house

The characteristics of a class‑A house are markedly superior and offer better performance than homes in lower categories. A passive house must therefore meet these requirements:

  • Envelope: covering the home’s insulation. Essential for minimising energy demand for heating and cooling.
  • Photovoltaic system: contributes to the production of electricity needed to run the heat pump.
  • Heat pump: used to climatise rooms sustainably by drawing energy from a renewable source.
  • Under‑floor heating: pipes laid beneath the floor emit heat evenly from bottom to top.
  • Insulated roof: provides excellent thermal insulation thanks to natural materials (e.g. cork or rock wool) that keep the house warm in winter and cool in summer.

For this reason La Foca House has been offering “passive houses” for years—homes capable of covering much of their own heating and cooling needs. To achieve a class‑A house, you therefore need these characteristics: insulation, photovoltaic system, heat pump, under‑floor heating and an insulated roof.

The advantages are twofold, energy‑related and economic: the house consumes less, so energy costs drop. Lower energy costs will therefore, over a few years, repay the initial investment made to build the home. Keep in mind that class‑A homes cost a little more because they guarantee certain savings and, later, clear economic returns.

Moreover, passive houses retain their value longer and—even decades later—remain highly sought‑after on the market, making them an excellent future investment that can be resold at a good price.

They are therefore homes that maximise energy efficiency through insulating materials and appropriate technologies.


What are the costs of a passive house?

In recent years the construction market has seen growing interest in Passive Houses (Passivhaus), but conflicting opinions abound regarding their prices.

Some claim they are extremely expensive and that the cost of a passive house is unjustified; others say they cost the same as a traditional home while offering much higher comfort.

First of all, let’s clarify that in construction it is impossible to set a universal €/m² price, because every building is different.
If your only goal is to spend as little as possible—as when shopping at a discount store—a Passivhaus is not for you.

Certain factors determine whether a building can be called passive. They are:

  • Orientation: positioning the house according to the sun’s path.
  • Openings: the number, quality, size of windows and their location (south, east, north, west) greatly affect the Passivhaus energy balance and thus its price.
  • Architectural features: architecturally complex buildings with many overhangs obviously have numerous geometric thermal bridges to resolve, increasing costs.
  • Quality of finishes: finishes often influence the price according to client demands—for example, triple‑glazed windows cost more, and prices vary between wooden and PVC frames.
  • Photovoltaic system: for electricity production.

These points influence the cost. If, alongside construction costs, we also consider operating costs, passive houses prove economical for a simple reason: lower energy consumption means lower bills and protection against future energy‑price increases.

Until 2019 a turnkey Passive House cost about €1,500/m² of gross floor area. Today, in 2022, due to rising raw‑material prices, the turnkey cost is €2,000/m² of gross floor area.


Class‑A houses: how to save energy and keep your home warm

In winter 2022, amid energy concerns and lower‑than‑usual temperatures, class‑A houses offer numerous advantages: energy savings on bills and, above all, warmth during the winter months.

Today the most widespread system for wooden buildings is undoubtedly the platform‑frame system, because each floor slab serves as a platform for erecting the next storey. Consequently, walls are built directly on‑site and fixed to the floor sheathing—or prefabricated in the factory and then assembled on‑site. These construction types share solidity, the adaptability of wood and, above all, a high‑performance insulation that keeps the home warm in winter.


How to insulate a passive house properly?

In a platform‑frame system, the house structure is built as a true wooden frame joined to continuous vertical studs that form the main structure of each wall. It is clad with panels that perform various functions to create a composite wall. One of these functions is insulation. The wooden framework and the infill of each wall are prefabricated in the factory, reducing costs and producing panels ready for on‑site installation.

Here are the key steps for excellent insulation and thus superior thermal performance:

  • Replacing windows and doors
  • Selecting thermally‑broken frames
  • Insulating—or upgrading the insulation of—external walls
  • Creating insulated partition walls
  • Adding rubber draft excluders to windows
  • Installing insulating and reflective panels behind radiators
  • Building suspended ceilings
  • Thermally insulating roller‑shutter boxes

It’s important to note that having highly efficient windows, excellent airtightness and solar panels for domestic hot water is not enough. You must start with the building envelope; this determines the basis for calculating the home’s efficiency: if walls, floors and roof are not built with top‑quality thermal‑acoustic insulation, designing sophisticated energy‑generation systems is pointless. It would be like trying to fill a bucket full of holes.
Excellent insulation allows better control of indoor temperatures, ensuring the thermal comfort that creates a sense of well‑being.


Conclusion: achieving energy savings starting from our production?

As a company, we have developed several types of wall for the initial building envelope. Today these two walls are the most in demand on the market, especially for home efficiency:

  • K19
    • Total thickness: 249 mm
    • Thermal transmittance U: 0.17 W/m²K
  • K15
    • Total thickness: 279 mm
    • Thermal transmittance U: 0.172 W/m²K

Choosing a passive house means not only targeting energy savings but also, and above all, residential well‑being. It means living in a home where the temperature is always pleasant, without drafts that slam doors shut. Where walls aren’t cold to the touch and floors don’t freeze your feet.

If you’d like to learn more about La Foca House’s energy‑saving wooden homes, request a consultation now!

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