We must take radical action on whole life carbon
Addressing building life cycle emissions requires much deeper action than is currently planned, says Marion Jammet of the Irish Green Building Council.
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Housing for who?
Despite an increase in the construction of new homes, the number available for first-time buyers and families to purchase is falling.
Passive house 30 years on: qualified success or brilliant failure?
As the stringent fabric-first, low energy standard enters its fourth decade, Guy Fowler asks what sort of impact it has made on the world, and where it should go from here.
How do breather membranes work?
How do underlays manage to let water vapour through while keeping the rain out? Toby Cambray delves into the physics…
Top 5 questions about specifying structural thermal breaks
Read Farrat's guide to specifying structural thermal breaks
CO2 Monitoring in Classrooms: Plain English Guide for Teachers
By Simon Jones of the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre.
This simple guide is generic and should be appropriate for any classroom and CO2 monitor
Let’s get decarbonisation done
While there is much debate about whether we should prioritise retrofitting homes or installing heat pumps, the climate crisis means we may not have a choice but to do both as fast as possible, writes Toby Cambray.
Kilbride Court EPDs
A list of EPDs from product manufacturers used in Kilbride Court.
The Saskatchewan House, 1977
In his latest column on the history of low energy building during the 20th century, Dr Marc
Ó Riain looks back at the Saskatchewan House, which was built in Canada in 1977, and
established the principle of prioritising energy demand reduction over active systems.
How will we decarbonise heating?
Insulating our homes is critical and must be our first priority, but how do we get the rest of the way to zero carbon? Dr Peter Rickaby investigates the options…
Cutting embodied carbon: doing more with less
We won’t be able to reduce the embodied carbon of construction fast enough just by switching to lower carbon materials, says Pat Barry of the Irish Green Building Council, so we urgently need smart design that allows us to build with less, and to create a genuine circular economy for building materials.
When is an A-rated home really A-rated?
Does the energy rating of homes actually reflect their real-world performance? Dr Shane Colclough, vice chair of the Passive House Association of Ireland, outlines the growing importance of post-occupancy analysis.
Housing for all: a plan in need of a story
Under its new housing plan, the government wants the state to acquire more land for housebuilding. But why has it failed to use the vast land banks it already owns? Mel Reynolds runs the rule over the figures.
Why the Green Homes Grant failed
The Green Homes Grant scheme failed because politicians failed to heed more than a
decade of lessons about how to do retrofit well, writes Dr Peter Rickaby, and now there
will be an even bigger hill to climb.
On the 3D printing of buildings
Building physics expert Toby Cambray finds himself unconvinced by the merits of a new home in the
Netherlands that has been 3D printed with concrete.
The emergence of thermal bridging & thermal bypass
In his latest column, Dr Marc Ó Riain takes a look back at the some of the first projects to address the
phenomena of thermal bridging and thermal bypass in buildings.
How to scale up energy renovation
The government’s target of retrofitting half a million homes by 2030 may seem
daunting, but the Irish Green Building Council is working on a series of initiatives to
help make it a reality, as the group’s Marion Jammet reports.
What’s to show from four years of Rebuilding Ireland?
In 2017 the government promised it would deliver 50,000 homes over the next five years as part of its Rebuilding Ireland programme. But figures from the first four years show it has fallen well short, writes Mel Reynolds.
Measuring humidity, the old school way
A chance purchase on eBay leads buildings physics expert Toby Cambray to admire the aesthetics and mechanics of old scientific instruments.
Shooting the moon
The concept of building back better and greener, popular early in the pandemic, is now in danger of being abandoned in the rush to return to ‘normal’ — but we always have the power to shape what normal is, writes Dr Peter Rickaby.