Clear skies
Construct Ireland investigates what measures the Irish government is undertaking to actively encourage the homeowner to switch to non-polluting renewable energy sources.
Welcome to the archive of Construct Ireland, the award-winning Irish green building magazine which spawned Passive House Plus.
The feature articles in these archives span from 2003 to 2011, including case studies on hundreds of Irish sustainable buildings and dozens of investigative pieces on everything from green design and building methods, to the economic arguments for low energy construction.
While these articles appeared in an Irish publication, the vast majority of the content is relevant to our new audience in the UK and further afield. That said, readers from some regions should take care when reading some of the design advice - lots of south facing glazing in New Zealand may not be the wisest choice, for instance.
Dip in, and enjoy!
Construct Ireland investigates what measures the Irish government is undertaking to actively encourage the homeowner to switch to non-polluting renewable energy sources.

A recent study undertaken by Dublin City Council could serve to shatter many commonly held misconceptions about how existing buildings can perform when compared to new build, even simply just in terms of running costs.
While the principles of low energy building apply equally for new build and upgrades, the reality is that htting passive levels becomes much trickier when retrofitting. The Passive House Institute have taken this on board and created a retrofit standard that is ambitious but achievable.

Cork city split level timber frame house with passive solar design, rainwater harvesting, renewables & green material

As fears grow amongst climate scientists that the world may be close to reaching a tipping point leading to runaway global warming, there’s a growing recognition that the forthcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen must deliver dramatic and binding targets to cut carbon. According to Richard Douthwaite, the talks are unlikely to deliver sufficiently meaningful action.
If one was to draw a conclusion on how seriously sustainability is being taken at government level using the number of occurrences of the word "sustainable" in policy documents, housing guidelines and speeches from Ministers, it would come across that Ireland's on a sound sustainable footing.

Marie Stamp, Senior Trade Commissioner at the Canadian Embassy, Dublin, discusses the merits of Super E home build.

Construct Ireland Journalist Frank Coles investigates the impact posed by the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive

