Leverkusen, Germany-An ultra low-energy house just built in Munich shows that high-quality insulation is both environmentally friendly and saves money long term. The house features a polyurethane heat insulation system from Hasit Trockenmörtel GmbH & Co. KG of Freising in Germany, which interacts intelligently with vacuum insulation panels to give lower heating costs. The rigid polyurethane foam insulation panels are made by Puren Schaumstoff GmbH, of Überlingen, Germany, using polyurethane raw m aterials supplied by Bayer MaterialScience AG. Hasit and its partners have now received general building certification for this system from the German Institute of Construction Technology (DIBt) in Berlin.The building, at 23 Seitzstrasse, has a design which harmonises with new developments to its north and south and is "a minor miracle of energy-saving technology," claims a Bayer press statement. The building, part-funded by the City of Munich, houses offices, shops and apartments-with an energy consumption of only 20 kWh/m2 a year. That equates to just two litres of heating oil per sq metre per year-only one tenth of the energy consumed by the average building in Munich. The house also clearly undercuts the ambitious standard for low-energy houses of 40 to 60 kWh/m2 a year. Bayer also stresses that if the Seitzstrasse house was not in the shade of its neighbours, it could compete with truly passive houses, which use less than 15 kWh/ m2 a year. "
