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!
SEAI recently proposed a series of changes to Deap — the software tool used to calculate BERs — including a reduction in its primary energy factor. But while this will benefit electrically-powered heating devices, some in the industry still feel systems such as heat pumps are disadvantaged by Deap and the BER system
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.
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.
Cork city split level timber frame house with passive solar design, rainwater harvesting, renewables & green material
Brian Homan, Joint Managing Director of leading consulting engineers Homan O’Brien Associates describes a nursing home currently being built that is adopting a sustainable building approach to deliver healthy, comfortable accommodation at low running costs.
‘‘We have a body of extremely experienced and competent staff who will be able to hit the ground running”
Lorna Kelly, of the Irish Timber Frame Manafacturers Association, takes a look at IrishTimber Frame
Richard Douthwaite reveals that oil and gas peak are barely mentioned in the Government's recent energy Green Paper.
In a comparatively short time, district heating and cooling have emerged as an ideal sustainable solution for mixed use, residential, commercial and industrial developments. Far from being a new technology, district heating systems have been commonplace across Europe since the 1960s. Noel Walshe BE of district heating specialists Noel Walshe ltd explains what is required to deliver the most effective solution.
The government is aiming to energy upgrade one million buildings by 2020, but huge investment will be needed to reach that goal as finance expert Jack O’Keeffe of Larchmont Consulting explains