Case Study: Bernhardt Passive Home

Isbrand Funk of EuroLine Windows and Helmut Grohschaedl of REHAU North America share a goal: to create products that leave the world a better place for future generations. This drive led to EuroLine and REHAU’s involvement in the Passive House movement and the Bernhardt Passive Home in British Columbia.

Many factors could have jammed construction of the Bernhardt project before it began. Zoning requirements, a complex T shape, and an enclosed garage outside of the thermal envelope made achieving the air tightness required for a low-energy building challenging. Despite these challenges, the home is on track to be Vancouver Island’s first certified Passive House.

Because EuroLine is in the process of rolling out its ThermoPlus window, which uses REHAU’s GENEO product to promise a reduction in energy loss of up to 76 percent, the companies partnered with Rob Bernhardt, project manager at Bernhardt Contracting and current president of the Canadian Passive House Institute, to test drive the system.

Using RAU-FIPRO, a custom composite material, the ThermoPlus tilt-and-turn design combines the best of GENEO with multipoint locking hardware. The windows were key to Bernhardt’s design, which needed to capture heat during the winter but block out heat during the summer.

“This did not present a giant leap into unknown territory for EuroLine, as it might for a company coming from mass production of low-end windows,” Funk says.

REHAU, like EuroLine, started work on Passive House projects in the early 2000s in Europe, so the Bernhardt home was an extension of the movement’s adoption throughout North America. “We have the expertise and the knowledge, and we are very happy that we have a partner like EuroLine,” Grohschaedl says, “who is embracing this and seeing the opportunities and bringing solutions to the market.”