Construction of straw often attracts a supporter of natural building, however we encounter a critical rejection of orthodox among builders. Post of architect Aleš Brotánek analyzes using straw in facades of wooden buildings, which seems to be questionable at present. It defends its environmental advantages, but also a convenient fire resistance of over 120 minutes due to protection (external and internal) non-flammable layers of clay and a thickness of 50 mm and lime plaster thickness of 30 mm. The application of straw is accompanied by practical examples, including installation.

The article is focused on the reconstruction of traditional timber joist ceilings with an additionally cast concrete slab. At Faculty of Civil Engineering in Brno conducted experimental work aimed at the analysis and behaviour of composite slab structures. Huge attention was put also on the separation of the concrete from the timber parts of the structure with the help of foils (separation layer) to prevent the movement of moisture from the concrete mixture to the timber elements. Therefore the increase in water content within the wood was also observed during the experimental part of the research together with the effects of the separating film to the characteristic of the coupled elements - coupling slip modulus K [N/mm].

This article is based on the diploma thesis which investigates the behaviour of passive buildings by using parameter studies in the Czech weather conditions (9 locations were selected for the studies).
Three model objects (intentionally simplified) were designed for the parameter studies. They represent the common types of residential buildings – isolated one-family house, row family house and multiple dwelling house. The influence of various parameters is analysed on these objects.
The PHPP (PassivhausProjektierungsPaket) method was applied for the calculations. In the study following values are watched: the energy use for heating, heat loss and solar gain and the overtemperature in summer.
For example such parameters as the window size, window quality, building orientation, inner temperature were varied in the parameter studies. So called “standard objects” with U-values according to the Czech standard ČSN 73 0540-2:2007 were also included in some parameter studies.

Despite the fact that since the abolition of the "old" technical standards for determining loads and dimension of structural elements and structures already passed almost two years, still a part of our professional community doesn’t know all the impact of the introduction of Eurocodes in the field of mechanically anchored flexible roof waterproofing layers. More knowledgeable construction supervisors and also the insurance companies refuse to accept or insure mechanically anchored roof layers that are not properly constructed - including demonstrably and properly anchored.

At a European level a Directive of the European Parliament and Council 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings (EPBD) has been released in 2010 whereas the main requirement is to reduce energy consumption in buildings (replacing 2002/91/EC). A set of European standards have been issued for its implementation, eg EN 15232 Energy performance of buildings - Impact of automation, control and management of buildings. In the Czech Republic the Directive was implemented by Act No. 406/2000 Coll. energy management and decree 148/2007 on the energy performance of buildings. The current global trend is characterized by promoting energy efficient technologies. The aim of this work is to summarize domestic household consumption, it´s prediction and analysis of potential energy savings by using the wiring system (BACS).

When assessing the sustainability it is needed to take into account in addition to environmental objectives as well as financial resources. All decisions during construction depend on the resources. Low budget targets and passive house standard can be easily merged together. It is important that designers optimally apply all known ways to reduce costs during construction.

Concept of energy efficiency buildings provides provable reduction in consumption of energy in compliance with the required user’s comfort. Taking into the account the trend to minimize heat escape and heat loss and increase of the airtight buildings, the installation of controlled ventilation is one of the steps leading to the optimal sanitary requirements and the overall energy efficiency of buildings. Quality indoor environment of energy efficient buildings, as well as the maximum level of comfort in this case is a controlled ventilation system with heat recovery and hot air heating. This article presents partial monitoring in situ measurements of selected parameters of the indoor environment during the operation of the upper and lower distribution system of hot air heating and ventilation in the selected experimental building.

A survey of cellular concrete facades of residential buildings in the Slovak Republic, executed between 2010 and 2011, showed extensive cracks. These can be a problem for safe anchoring of ETICS to the existing facade. Crack is a discontinuity in the mass, the pull-out tests results show that near the crack can be regarded as a weak area with a lower load capacity of anchors. This paper informs about the tests results in situ and the preliminary results of laboratory tests.

The paper describes existing databases of environmental data of building products with focus on Czech tool Envimat.cz. It is an online tool, which provides environmental indicators of building materials with main purpose of providing a unified, transparent and reliable system that allows user to compare different products and structures; motivate the producers to fill in data sets of their products and improve their technologies; convince architects and designers to care about different sustainability profiles of materials; give advantage to products that have lower environmental impacts being at the same technical level than the competitor. The implementation of Envimat is divided into the three main phases: start-up phase (data from the generic database); transitional phase (combination of generic and localized data); regular operation with fully localized data.

Measurement of natural lighting should be performed in a dark surrounding terrain. In light terrain (landscape covered with snow) only for completion. With regard to the brightness of the sky, its stability and colour of sky, it should be performed at the time around noon. It shouldn't rain or be fog. Disadvantage is requirement of uniformly overcast sky, because it happens only few times a year.

The decision to additional thermal insulation of facade begins with a question "what's million-dollar investment will bring us". Many of the available information we find say that it will bring about 50% savings in heating. The heat meter, installed at the inlet of connecting pipe to the heating system should therefore show the half consumption of heat than before, but usually the results are very different - in both directions.

This paper deals with the development of measurement of the building envelope airtight in the Czech Republic. Specifies the initial criteria and mistakes that were made. Addresses in detail the current state of measuring air tightness and provides some interesting insights from practice. The paper was presented at a conference Passive Houses 2011.

The paper deals with the possible health risks of exposure of persons to ultraviolet radiation primarily from incoherent technological resources. It talks about the effects on the human body and hygiene limits, the criteria for assessing health risks, the method of measurement and hygienic supervision at the preview of this issue, including the use of UV radiation in commercial tanning salons.

The article is devoted to research on the influence of the separation layer wood-concrete floor structures. Using the separation layer is justified especially in the case of reconstruction of historically valuable floor structures, such as a painted deck or beams, where water during the casting technology may cause damage, or even in the case of concrete applications with a high coefficient of water, where excessive moisture could adversely affect the mechanical properties of wood.
According to the results of the experiments we can say that in the application of concrete with a water factor approximately 0.4, it is not necessary to use concrete structure interlayer separation between concrete and formwork. Using foil separation negatively affects stress coupling elements, and thus the entire composite structure.

This paper describes the design of the new windows of the building of the National Museum in Prague and its heat-technical assessment.

Thermal stability of rooms without air-conditioning depends mainly on the thermal energy storage capacity of envelope and possible heat gains. Sensible heat storage structures, e.g. brickwork, concrete walls and slabs, usually do not have sufficient thermal storage capacity and some additional thermal storage mass is needed for cold storage. Passive cooling with thermal storage in phase change materials (PCMs) is a very effective way to improve thermal stability of the rooms with light-weight envelope. The main advantage of the phase change materials storage in buildings is the possibility to store a huge amount of heat in a rather narrow temperature interval. Passive cooling based on the latent heat storage technology can contribute to the energy and operative cost savings during summer season. The efficiency of this kind of passive cooling significantly depends on the heat transfer rates between the ambient environment and the thermal storage material. Modern administrative buildings or wooden buildings are often made of light-weight materials with rather small thermal mass. The latent heat cold storage in the phase change materials seems to be quite promising in this respect since it offers high thermal storage capacity.

Clay bricks are one of the most common material used mainly in the contruction of residential buildings. We can say that masonry is a kind of standard of building design, as all other materials are being compared with brick masonry. Few years ago, there were only full bricks. In connection with the development requierements of heat transfer coefficient of the wall, the structure of the bricks is changing. Currently avaliable bricks are suitable for one-layer masonry of passive houses. The article presents an overview of the development of bricks and outlook for the future.

The design concept of passive houses is not a contradiction. On the contrary, higher quality of architecture is likely to increase the sustainability of a passive house. Architect Werner Friedl presents the passive house in words and pictures some of his built passive houses in a practical design, including construction details.

Wood that is used in building construction, requires evaluation of the properties - classification in grade with regard to its mechanical properties. Methods for assessing the quality of structural timber is divided into two groups: a visual method and automated methods based on different principles. Quality of timber is determined by the Slovak technical standards and EN. STN EN 49 1531 provides classes of timber - S0, SI and SII, as well as sorting criteria. The evaluation of quality timber ultrasonic method is classified into the timber strength class C with the corresponding values of density, elastic modulus and characteristic strength according to STN EN 338. Highest reliability and efficiency of sorting structural timber is achieved by a combination of both methods of assessing its quality.