A truly sustainable built environment hinges on a multiplicity of factors, not least including the context within which a building sits. Dr Peter Rickaby argues that a focus on cities may lead us in the wrong direction.
In this blog post, Devyn Olsen-Sawyer of the Irish Green Building Council reviews Ireland's recently complete QualiBuild programme, which upskilled Irish construction workers in low energy building techniques.
Roughly 50,000 excess winter deaths occur annually between the UK and Ireland, with fuel poverty a primary cause. Yet although concerted social housing retrofit efforts could help tackle climate change while preventing thousands of senseless deaths of vulnerable people, flawed financial modelling is letting us down, argues Peter Rickaby.
In this blog post, David McHugh of Irish heat recovery ventilation manufacturer ProAir recalls the story of the company, from its foundation in his spare bedroom right up to its recent passive house certification
The primary reason for requiring airtightness in buildings has nothing to do with energy efficiency or occupant comfort, writes Helen Brown, head of building physics at Encraft — it's for the protection of the building fabric.
In this blog post, Féidhlim Harty of FH Wetland Systems, looks at the passive and eco-friendly home sewage treatments options for those building low energy and sustainable homes
One building in Central London is using solar thermal tubes not just to generate renewable energy but also to create a remarkable and eye-catching facade.
The head of the Construction Industry Federation has warned against local authorities mandating the passive house standard, while not appearing to understand what passive houses are. Interviewed on RTE 1's Today with Seán O'Rourke yesterday, Construction Industry Federation director general Tom Parlon mistakently claimed that passive houses require rainwater harvesting systems and solar photovoltaic systems "and a lot of different expensive extras".
On Monday the Irish Times reported that both Nama and the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) had objected to plans by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to make the passive house house standard mandatory for all new buildings under the local authority’s latest development plan, which is due to come into force next year.
This article, originally published in 2012, details the Irish building industry's history of opposition to higher standards.
The expression ‘from a needle to an anchor’ comes to mind after having spent a day walking through the 17 halls of the Munich Exhibition for the biennial BAU.
The 2014 UK Passivhaus conference, held this year in Stevenage, was, like the previous such events, completely packed. Discussion centred around fine tuning of financing, delivery and performance — and on how to bring the wider construction sector on board the passive house agenda.
I believe the children are our future, as the stomach-churningly saccharine song line goes. If the emerging evidence from recent Irish 2nd level exam papers are anything to go by, the construction studies teachers share that sentiment, and are ensuring that the next generation of Irish designers and contractors will have a detailed understanding of how to design and construct passive houses.
Leading Irish property portal Daft.ie’s latest quarterly rental report was published this week, and included an assertion on the link between construction and planning requirements and the profitability of development – an assertion our editor felt Jeff Colley compelled to debunk.
What’s not to like about building regulations that demand 60% energy savings compared to boom time standards, and mandate the use of renewable energy? Glitches in the guidance documents, that’s what – glitches that unwittingly disincentivise energy efficiency best practice and risk causing building damage and compromising occupant health.
In this blog post, Paul Doran recalls the challenges and lessons of building a low energy home on a tight budget for his family.
The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources launched the energy policy green paper for Ireland on May 12, marking the beginning of a ten-week public consultation on the future shape of Ireland’s energy policy.
Having spent a year and a half doing research into what houses we should be building in the 21st century, I have never ventured far from the Passive House standard. The reason for this is that it makes sense! That's not to say that I haven't come across criticism.
Airtightness expert Mark Shirley of Zephair reports from the International Passive House Conference in Aachen - with Irish low energy expertise attracting significant attention, and signs of a rapidly growing UK presence in passive house.
April 7 saw the opening of the five-day meeting in Germany, between government representatives and scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to finalise the third report in a four part series, assessing the options for mitigating climate change and the underlying technical, economic and institutional requirements. Last month saw the release of the second report from the IPCC, in Yokohama, Japan on 31 March.