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Wexford passive house wins Isover energy efficiency award
Isover Ireland held their annual Energy Efficiency Awards in Dublin on Friday 1 March in Dublin. The awards recognise low energy renovation and new build projects in both the residential and commercial sectors. Isover award ceremonies are held in individual countries, with national winners going forward to Isover's European Energy Efficiency Awards. At the Dublin ceremony, Isover announced that the 2014 European awards will take place in Ireland.
Francis and Brigid Clauson's passive house in Kiltilly, Co Wexford emerged as the overall winner of the Irish awards. The house is passive certified, and was designed by Winkins Architecture and Integrated Energy. Achieving a space heat demand of just 13.4 kWh/m2/yr and an airtightness result of 0.58 m3/h.m2, the project demonstrated that a low energy house could be built in a traditional style within the tight planning constraints on the form and height of residential constructions. External insulation helps to ensure a thermal bridge free envelope. The house also incorporates photovoltaic array panels combined with a heat pump to supply low temperature underfloor heating. To enter the awards houses must incorporate an Isover product, and the Clausons' house features Isover High Performance Duct Wrap insulation on MHRV ducts, as well as Isover Metac insulation in the roof.
Homeowners Francis and Brigid Clauson were driving forces behind their building team. Alan Tier of Integrated Energy stated: "The clients were early adopters of new techniques and approaches …. they put their trust in new scientific approaches to construction technology, resulting in a building which is not only an energy efficient, energy producing machine for living, it is also a bright, fresh, healthy and happy home." The house is profiled in the current issue of Passive House Plus.
Isover said that it believes the awards are helping to drive a new national standard for new construction and retrofit. Much of Ireland’s existing building stock continues to consume a considerable amount of energy for heating with significant emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels. With 1.2 million buildings requiring retrofit across Ireland there is a huge opportunity to influence good practice for retrofit to future proof homes, the company said.
"Ireland could become a go to country in terms of retrofit knowledge … exporting these skills to the rest of Europe and beyond," Isover Ireland managing director Brian Dolan said at the awards.
The runners-up were Green Extension Architects for home-owner Liam Desmond's A2 rated renovation in Stillorgan Co Dublin, and Glenashling Nursing Home, in Celbridge, the first passive certified nursing home in Ireland, by Integrated Energy and The Clarke Partnership. In relation to the construction industry in Ireland and drive towards more energy efficient buildings Brian Dolan remarked that there was a "sense of optimism in the room and I do think we have turned the corner in Ireland, so we all need to stay positive and build on the emerging green shoots of growth".
Passive House Plus editor Jeff Colley was one of four judges of the awards, along with Isover's Fintan Smyth, Tomás O'Leary of the Passive House Academy and sustainable design consultant Jay Stuart.
