From the Construct Ireland archives

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

Plans for the first Irish eco-village have been in the works since 1999, but – finally – work is well underway at The Village in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary. Following a site visit in December, Lenny Antonelli gives an overview of the innovative project’s renewable energy district heating system and sustainable planning and community design approach, before profiling four of the first houses to be built.

Fingal County Council have clearly shown a laudable commitment to innovation by introducing a mandatory planning requirement for seven areas that all new developments reduce energy use and C02 emissions relating to space & water heating to 60% below Building Regulations requirements, with 30% of space & water heating coming from renewable energy sources

A new development in County Westmeath answers a nagging question about district heating: how to make it financially viable when it services energy efficient buildings. Lenny Antonelli visited a housing estate that combines low energy design with an innovative district heating system and ecological timber frame construction

‘‘We have a body of extremely experienced and competent staff who will be able to hit the ground running”

Until recently the York Street flats had been a living legacy of failed past approaches to social housing – a slum of mainly north-facing flats dating from Victorian times, and poorly rebuilt in the year Ireland became a republic, 1949. John Hearne visited the recently redeveloped York Street and found a thoroughly sustainable set of buildings that should inspire thoughts of future progress rather than past failings.

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.

Ernst Posthuma of Solarcon sheds light on a demonstration project in west Cork that combines passive and active solar gains to remarkable effect.

For a building to truly be considered a passive house a vast range of criteria need to be met, as Niels Bjergstrom, founder of Zero-Carbon Solutions Ltd reveals.

Is it possible to ditch fossil fuels and run a 1970s Irish bungalow on solar energy? Norman McMillan’s renovated A1-rated bungalow in Carlow proves it is.