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BASF House Project

School of the Built Environment, Nottingham University

REHAU is a partner in the BASF House Project at Nottingham University’s School of the Built Environment. It is designed to demonstrate how passive heating and ventilation can be successfully achieved in a UK property delivering a low carbon foot print at an affordable cost.

BASF House Project, Nottingham

Based on a 20-house development, the BASF House could be built with a budget of £70,000 – in line with the government’s plans to build 4.2m new homes by 2016. This is largely down to the fact that it utilises passive design and high performance insulation materials rather than costly and experimental renewable technologies.

As a leading polymer producer, REHAU has supplied a range of materials for the house including PVC-U window and curtain walling systems for the openings and glazed elevations, polymer pipework for the plumbing and drainage, a ground air heat exchanger and rainwater management system.

The BASF House is compact with a floor area of 8.9m x 7m but it feels light and airy thanks to the use of a full height glazed REHAU sun space on the south facing elevation. This contributes towards solar gain in winter and reduces the requirement for artificial lighting.

The REHAU ground air heat exchanger works alongside the sun space to provide a constant supply of ventilated air to the house, which is pre-cooled by up to 14K from below ground during summer and pre-warmed by up to 9K during winter.

This REHAU AWADUKT Thermo system had already attracted interest from Germany’s Passive House Institute as a solution for providing the ventilation necessary in such a highly insulated property and, like all of the components in the BASF house, its performance will be monitored over the course of the next year.

The REHAU RAURAIN rainwater management system has also been installed to collect and filter rainwater in an underground tank and then distribute it via a pump and separate pipe system for all non-potable water requirements such as flushing toilets, washing machines and watering the garden - minimising the treated mains water requirement.

Structurally, the house uses BASF Neopor insulating concrete formwork (ICF) on the ground floor and structural insulated panels (SIPS) above. Modified SmartBoard plasterboard on some internal walls stores and releases heat depending on the internal temperature.

Currently, the house achieves a code level 4 under the government’s Code for Sustainable Homes but this could be upgraded to a level 5 with the addition of on site micro generation of electricity.

Nottingham University students will shortly move into the house so that its energy consumption can be monitored during general occupancy over a 12 month period.

Zero carbon profile014-BASFHouse

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Products used in this project;

REHAU Window & Curtain Walling Systems
Awadukt Thermo - Ground-Air Heat Exchanger
REHAU Heating & Plumbing Systems
REHAU Rainwater Harvesting System

	BASF House Case Study	3166 kb
	BASF_House_01	14182 kb
	BASF_House_02	16119 kb

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