Irish Marketplace - passivehouseplus.ie

A family Bed & Breakfast in Glenties, Co Donegal built during the last boom has lowered its energy bills and improved comfort thanks to a suite of upgrade measures that included a new Daikin air source heat pump.

Tramex, the Irish manufacturer of moisture meters for the building design and construction industries, has emphasised the critical importance of testing and monitoring moisture conditions within buildings as airtightness and insulation standards continue to increase.

A new Dublin passive house is aiming to achieve the required standard of airtightness using using an innovative new application of Blowerproof liquid airtight membrane. Blowerproof liquid airtight membrane is a BBA certified product with Class C fire rating, which has been used widely on passive house projects across Europe for the last 10 years.

Towards Zero Energy Ltd has just completed eight months monitoring of five dwellings in the Dublin region that it upgraded to A1 BERs last year under SEAI’s Deep Retrofit Pilot Programme. The dwellings were typical suburban 1950s to 1970s two-storey, semi-detached/terraced houses and all were three or four bedrooms in size.

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.

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.

Leading low energy retrofit contractor Encon has teamed up with Waterford Credit Union to offer low interest loans to anyone thinking undertaking of a home energy upgrade, in a bid to help develop the retrofit market in the region.

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.

An innovative Wicklow company is embracing the circular economy by manufacturing soundproofing boards from recycled materials.

A luxury new development in an exclusive Dublin location will achieve nearly zero energy building (NZEB) standards with help from Daikin Altherma air-to-water heat pumps and a highly energy efficient building fabric.

Beam Vacuum & Ventilation has announced that they have successfully achieved certification against the requirements of ISO 9001 (quality management), ISO 14001 (environmental management), and ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety), while also meeting the Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) for contractors’ criteria.

A 1960s cottage in Tipperary is one of the first projects to be deep retrofitted this year by Sola Energy Solutions under Tipperary Energy Agency’s popular SuperHomes scheme, which aims to make it easy for homeowners to undertake a deep energy upgrade by managing the entire retrofit process.

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.