Ireland - passivehouseplus.ie

Minister for finance Pascal Donohoe TD announced the World Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) Forum at government buildings recently, to be held in Dún Laoghaire on 13-14 November.

The Goldsmith Street development in Norwich has become both the first social housing scheme and the first passive house certified project to win the Stirling Prize, British architecture’s most prestigious award. 

Ecological Building Systems have announced the addition of a new thermal modelling service to their existing array of technical services. Ecological technical team member Joe Fitzgerald recently successfully completed the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) approved thermal modellers examination in Dublin Technological University. Fitzgerald is now listed on the NSAI thermal modellers register.

VentHeat, a new Irish company specialising in heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for passive house and low energy buildings, has launched the Pichler PKOM4 compact heat pump system to the Irish market. The system combines heating, cooling, ventilation and domestic hot water in one passive house certified unit with a footprint of less than 0.75 m2.

Antrim-based company Showersave say that the imminent inclusion of wastewater heat recovery in the new DEAP 4.2.0 software, set to be launched on 16 September, will provide developers, designers and builders with a simple and cost-effective new way to help ensure Part L compliance and achieve better building energy ratings.

Energy Action is hosting its eighth annual Fuel Poverty Conference in Dublin on 21 October 2019, at the Croke Park Conference Centre. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton TD will open the conference.

Durkan Residential are set to break ground this month on one of Ireland’s largest passive house schemes to date, Rockfield. Situated on Church Road, Killiney, the scheme will comprise 47 units, including 15 generously proportioned 171 m2 houses, 16 duplexes averaging 115 m2, and 16 ground floor units averaging 80 m2 each.

Bank of Ireland has unveiled a suite of green loans and interest rates to encourage home owners and businesses to be more energy efficient. The new initiatives include a green interest rate discount for borrowers buying or building energy efficient homes, and a green home improvement loan for energy efficiency retrofits. Businesses, including farmers, will also be able to access reduced interest rates for investment in energy saving improvements.

Low carbon concrete blocks are now widely available on the Irish market – bringing up to 50% reductions in embodied CO2 – and Passive House Plus helped make it happen.

Significantly more new homes (16.5%) were built in Ireland in the first eight months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 – with double digit declines in Dublin cancelled out by strong growth in the rest of the country, new analysis by Passive House Plus indicates.

Researchers from the School of Physics at NUI Galway are seeking to recruit 100 households to measure indoor environmental air quality within Irish homes that have been built to be highly energy efficient, by deploying remote sensors within the homes.

An international standard ‘E-Thermal’ environmental test facility designed to assist Irish SMEs in developing new sustainable heating products has formally been opened at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology.

Ecological Building Systems has announced a new partnership with Lime Green UK, the UK’s leading innovator in the field of lime-based plasters, renders and mortars.

A liquid screed installed three years ago at a passive house in Cork City has been performing superbly, according to its architect, enabling the A1 rated home to be heated quickly and evenly via underfloor heating when required.

The inherent properties of the Amvic ICF system make it easier for developers to meet energy efficiency, airtightness, noise and other regulations, according to the company’s Pat Martin.

Recent headlines suggest first time buyers are being pushed out of the housing market by ‘non-household’ buyers, so-called ‘cuckoo’ funds. Official figures suggest that private companies are not the only competition in the new homes market – there may be a ‘magpie’ out there also.

The government's new climate action plan does not show the level of committment needed to really reduce Ireland's carbon emissions, says Irish Green Building Council CEO Pat Barry. 

The Department of Housing is planning to introduce a policy on embodied carbon into building regulations, an event in Cork heard.

Simply Architecture, and their new build residential project ‘The Fairways’ in Cork, has been named the winner of the 2019 Overall ISOVER Award, as well as being named Designer of the Year 2019, at the third ISOVER Awards.

Achieving NZEB, a one-day event that aims to make it easy for the building industry to understand how to achieve nearly zero energy building (NZEB) standards, will take place this Thursday, 30 May in Youghal, County Cork.

Situated in a stunning location in the west of Ireland, between Galway Bay and the limestone hills of the Burren, this project provided a complex challenge in three parts: deep retrofit an old cottage into a yoga studio, reinvigorate its original extension, and build a new barrel-roofed passive-grade extension — then make it all work together as one unified home and workspace.

An award-winning social housing development in South Dublin points to a sustainable way out of Ireland’s housing crisis.

Ecocem, the leading producer of ground granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS), a low carbon alternative to traditional cement, says use of its product has saved 10 million tonnes of carbon emissions since the company began operating in 2002.

Leading Irish energy & airtightness consultancy Greenbuild has advised the building industry to be prepared for the new requirement, as of January of this year, to test new non-domestic buildings for airtightness on completion.

A state-of-the-art archive building in Cambridgeshire, which has been built to house Imperial War Museums’ (IWM) rich paper collection, has registered the best airtightness test result ever recorded in the UK – and perhaps, the world.

Isover has announced the launch of the 2019 Isover Awards. Following on from their previous incarnation, the Isover Energy Efficiency Awards, the new Isover Awards will be open to both contractors and architects/specification professionals, and seek to celebrate excellence in energy efficient building and design.

Why is it so difficult to get on the property ladder now compared to 20 years ago? After all, interest rates are lower and house prices are still below where they were in 2007. Architect Mel Reynolds runs through the figures.

Ecological Building Systems scooped three awards at the recent Architecture & Building Expo held in the RDS, Dublin. This event brings together the country’s leading architects, architectural technologists, industry professionals and specifiers.

Keystone Lintels has received certification from the British Board of Agrément (BBA) for its Hi-therm+ Lintel. According to the company, this makes it the only BBA approved one-piece lintel solution which achieves the appendix R value for steel lintels in Part L 2013 (depending on wall construction).

Leading insulation and airtightness contractor Usher Insulations has emphasised the importance of using reliable, quality airtightness products on site — to ensure that buildings remain air-sealed over their full lifetime, and not just for the day of their blower door test.