Passivhaus Veterinary Centre, Wigan

Vet and Passivhaus enthusiast Chris Copeman has built a newbuild Veterinary practice, which is aiming to meet the Passivhaus standard and has been designed by PYC group and built using an insulated timber frame structure provided by MBC Timber Frame.

21°s ULTRA and PERFORMANCE triple glazed timber windows & doors were chosen for the project and the MVHR system for the centre was designed, supplied and commissioned by 21°s MVHR team.

Design

Chris himself undertook a retrofit project on his own house that has reached the Passivhaus standard and has also undertaken training to become a Passivhaus consultant. When planning a new building for his veterinary practice it was inevitable that he would consider building to the Passivhaus standard.

The veterinary centre comprises three consulting rooms leading off a reception space that reaches up to the roof of the two-storey building, 

The project was designed by PYC Group using Passivhaus Planning Package software, which calculates energy use of the building using everything from solar orientation and altitude to windows and wall make up. This information was then plugged into a spreadsheet that gives a figure of how much energy that building will use. The goal under Passivhaus guidelines is a building that uses just 15 kilowatt hours per metre squared per year (15 kWh/m²/year).

The timber frame structure was provided by MBC Timber Frame and insulated using Warmcel recycled cellulose insulation and no steel is used in the building structure. Using timber frame off-site construction speeded up the building process.

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Bryn Veterinary Centre

Vet Chris Copeman built one of the first Passivhaus homes in the UK and now he has opened its first Passivhaus veterinary practice.

The foundations of the building are made up of a passive raft which is a polystyrene raft laid down on to a sand blinding with a lip into which the reinforced concrete floor for the building is poured. The result is a concrete floor that is surrounded by insulation so there is minimal heat loss and thermal bridging from the ground floor.

The building achieved an airtightness of 0.33 ach and is currently awaiting Passivhaus certification.

MVHR heat recovery ventilation

Building to the Passivhaus standard means working to stringent levels of airtightness, which inevitably means that you need an MVHR heat recovery system. Green Building Store designed, supplied and commissioned the MVHR system for the project. A PAUL NOVUS 450 MVHR unit was specified, alongside galvanised rigid steel ducting.

The ventilation system at Bryn Veterinary Centre provides a controlled amount of ventilation to every room in the building and enables the veterinary centre to extract air from ‘wet’ rooms, such as operating rooms and kennel rooms, to create a healthy air flow and reduce the risk of infection. The heat exchanger within the MVHR system takes the heat out of the stale air being taken out of the building and passes it into the fresh air, without anything else being exchanged.

Triple glazed timber windows and doors

Chris has previously chosen 21° triple glazed timber windows and doors on his own house. For the Bryn Veterinary Centre 21°s high performance PERFORMANCE and ULTRA range were chosen. All the windows in the centre are inward opening and the timber finish chosen was RAL 7003.

More information

Bryn Veterinary Centre

PYC Group

MBC Timber Frame