Randy Ralston and Mel Cronin aimed for the passive house standard with their upgrade, and though they didn’t quite get there they ended up with a house that produces more energy than it consumes, making it one of the country’s flagship green renovation projects.
In the hands of the right architect, meeting the passive house standard needn’t involve compromising on design. Construct Ireland visited a recently certified passive house which shows that a seamless low energy architecture is possible
Sustainable architect Simon McGuinness describes a project in Dublin which is set to surpass the onerous standard using structural insulated panels.
Built in 2004, Tomás O’Leary's house in Wicklow was the first in the country to be certified by the Passive House Institute — but how would it fare when subjected to a BER assessment six years later?
Martin Murray, chairman of the Passive House Association of Ireland and founder of Martin Murray Architects, explains why the world’s leading energy efficiency standard is on the up in Ireland
Imagine moving into a house without a heating system – what would you do? Contact the developer and demand they put one in immediately? Call a solicitor and sue the builder? Or sit back and enjoy living in a house, designed to meet your expectations of comfort without any recourse to a space heating system. Jason Walsh met the people behind Ireland’s drive toward the passive house.
Few concepts in sustainable design have caught on like the passive house. Since the construction of the first passive house in Germany in 1990, an estimated 15 to 20,000 houses have been built to what is arguably the world’s leading low energy building standard. Drawing from his experience in sustainable building since the early 1980s, Bill Quigley of NuTech Renewables posits an alternative approach.
On Tuesday the 15th of March a passive house, a house that does not need to be heated, was built a few miles outside of Galway. The brain child of Lars Pettersson of Galway based Scandinavian Homes Ltd, it is believed to be the world’s first standardized and factory made passive house.
Passive houses have long been considered the ultimate in low energy buildings. So when it comes to BERs, why don’t they always get a straight A? Lenny Antonelli investigates.
A striking new house in County Cork proves that meeting the passive house standard needn’t mean sacrificing good design
Unipipe are specialist distributors of heat pumps, underfloor heating and renewable low-energy heating systems.
