Minergie-P-ECO

Today we received the provisional Minergie-P-ECO certificate. This means that the way we plan our house meets the criteria for this label. We will then still have to prove that we built it as planned to get the definitive certificate.

So why did we decide to apply for certification? In our discussions with architects and engineers, we were advised several times not to try Minergie, because it is a complicated process with a lot of administrative work and the additional cost of certification is higher than the subsidy you get for such a building. Nevertheless, we decided to go for the certification. First and foremost, we want to build a modern house that is sustainable, that will allow us to reduce our resource consumption and thus greatly reduce our environmental footprint. If we want to be successful, we should adhere to current standards. In Switzerland, such standards are the various Minergie labels (A, P, ECO). Since the passive house character is an essential element of our planning, we chose the P version. The "P" should stand for Passive House, but Minergie has no criteria for how much direct solar gain must be achieved. The additional ECO part seemed logical to us, given our sustainability goals.

Nevertheless, we listened to the advice of architects and engineers and decided to write the application ourselves. I think this is a very good solution to avoid high costs for certification. Most of the information, except for the SIA and EN standards, can be found online and the requirements are quite clear. Writing the Minergie-P application was a really good way to improve the planning. The Minergie expert in charge was also a great help by putting his finger on the problematic aspects of the building. As far as I know, there are only 3 examples of such an application (one per national language in Switzerland). Examples are, in my opinion, the best way to understand what is required, so I am uploading our version here. Feel free to get inspired and/or give us feedback. Personally, I found the ECO part less interesting as it mainly consists of a list of questions/requirements to answer/accept. The grey energy calculation remains quite primitive and sound insulation and natural room lighting are not issues in our case.

For the certification, we had to simplify the calculations as much as possible. Therefore, the application contains almost no reference to the passive heat gains and the solar architectural concept. I will describe this in another post.

MinergiePGesuch.pdf

Download PDF • 15.69MB

Windcowl.pdf

Download PDF • 2.84MB

Different type of Minergie certifications