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!
Imagine moving into a house without a heating system – what would you do? Contact the developer and demand they put one in immediately? Call a solicitor and sue the builder? Or sit back and enjoy living in a house, designed to meet your expectations of comfort without any recourse to a space heating system. Jason Walsh met the people behind Ireland’s drive toward the passive house.
The German-Irish Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GICIC) has just completed a study titled “The Potential of Renewable Energy in Ireland”.
Based on the study’s findings, Bernd Reinhard, Deputy Executive Director of the GICIC outlines the potential that fast emerging renewable technologies possess to revolutionise Ireland’s energy supply, from wind power’s capacity on a national level, to the benefits the likes of solar and geothermal can offer proactive homeowners
Any building, no matter how cold and draughty, no matter how remote, can be improved to world-class energy performance, as an upgraded and extended Donegal cottage dating back to the 1800s proves.
Achieving building regulations compliance and a good energy rating is one thing. Delivering a genuinely low energy building is quite another. A new scheme by one of Ireland’s most decorated developers may help show the market a way forward.
Recent allegations that a single leaf timber frame development in Leitrim was forced to incorporate an outer layer of blockwork in spite of no such requirement in the Building Regulations or by the local authority in question suggests that something is seriously amiss, as Frank Coles explains.
A cursory browse through Dublin Civic Trusts website and one is all too quickly reminded of the constant threat to our Architectural heritage
World record oil prices are being shattered so regularly that breaking news stories on the matter seem cliché, with other fossil energy sources heading in the same direction. Richard Douthwaite describes the first significant signs that Irish banks may be starting to take the issue on board regarding property lending.
After a long struggle to build their home, Karen and Steve Ward finally got their wish — an energy efficient, timber frame house that boasts a palette of healthy and ecological materials and a fully renewable heating system.
RICHARD DOUTHWAITE proposes measures including energy upgrade of the housing stock which could help to avoid economic meltdown, and JAY STUART outlines some energy saving measures which could be rolled out.