From the Construct Ireland archives

Staggeringly airtight ecological home in Athenry set to meet the Passive House Institute standard

Located in Oldtown, a hard to find country town in County Dublin, is a stunning new one-off house that not only manages to bring open-plan living to rural life, but also meets the onerous passive house standards using low impact materials. Jason Walsh visited the site as the house neared completion to find out more, an opportunity that Construct Ireland couldn’t pass up

A new development at Grange Lough, Rosslare, reveals that passive houses can be made Irish – both in terms of what they’re built with, and how they look.

Invest NI has itself invested in a new headquarters in central Belfast that it hopes will be seen as a model for sustainable development, as Richard Linger, Sustainability Director, White Young Green Ireland explains.

Construct Ireland tracked down the busy director of Limerick Civil Trust to talk about the sterling work already done, current projects and to ponder the implications of recent FAS cutbacks.

SEAI recently proposed a series of changes to Deap — the software tool used to calculate BERs — including a reduction in its primary energy factor. But while this will benefit electrically-powered heating devices, some in the industry still feel systems such as heat pumps are disadvantaged by Deap and the BER system

At Tom Heneghan’s new development in Dromard, Belmullet, Co. Mayo, it’s a case of sixteen units down, eleven to go as Construct Ireland goes to press. Exceeding the thermal performance requirements of the Building Regulations by some 60%, these houses incorporate a range of innovative and affordable sustainable building technologies which together deliver high comfort, low energy living, as John Hearne reveals.

The building is the first all timber office complex in Ireland. It covers almost 2,300m2 of floor space and provides accommodation for almost 100 staff working in a wide range of forestry related disciplines.

‘Interest in sustainable construction, both from private sector individuals and businesses and from the public sector has grown rapidly in the last couple of years. Unfortunately the ability of the industry to respond to this interest is under developed’ – Tom Woolley.

With the age of cheap and abundant fossil fuel energy coming to an end, district heating, where a development is heated from a single, centralised heat source is becoming an increasingly attractive option due to the capital and running cost, efficiency and environmental benefits it can offer. Paraic Davis of Davis Associates mechanical and electrical engineers explains why district heating has become a viable and increasingly popular choice in Ireland.