From the Construct Ireland archives

A recent study instigated by the American Environmental Protection Agency has identified indoor air quality as one of the top five urgent environmental risks to public health.

Much of the housing built around Dublin over the last forty years has been built of single-leaf nine-inch hollow block construction – which are both notoriously energy inefficient and extremely difficult to insulate effectively without causing damp problems. Lenny Antonelli visited a hollow block house which has been ecologically renovated to protect occupant health whilst shooting to the top of the energy rating scale.

Part of the Mater Hospital redevelopment, the recently completed Mater Orchard building is a first class example of how to integrate sustainable building strategies into a substantial building whilst keeping extra cost to a minimum.

In the aftermath of our recent awareness raising, Construct Ireland began to research what measures the Irish government was taking to prepare for the Energy directive, and how this compared with views from other EU member states, an investigation that is revealing startling results. Jeff Colley reports.

Ron and Collette Wardle started suffering ill health almost immediately after a sloppy energy upgrade. But reading a copy of Construct Ireland started a chain of events that led to the couple getting a brand new ventilation system — and seeing a marked improvement in their health.

Lenny Antonelli takes a look at some of the entrants of the 2009 Solar Decathlon, a competition that challenges university teams from around the world to design and build homes that capture the sun’s energy.

A striking new house in County Cork proves that meeting the passive house standard needn’t mean sacrificing good design

The Dwelling Energy Assessment Procedure (DEAP) is now the national methodology for creation of Building Energy Rating (BER) Certificates for new dwellings in Ireland, and is an important desk top tool for predicting the performance of projects at outline design stage.

Brian Dowd, ESB’s products and services manager, talks about the company’s new energy strategy and the launch of the next phase of their Halo programme.

Passive houses have long been considered the ultimate in low energy buildings. So when it comes to BERs, why don’t they always get a straight A? Lenny Antonelli investigates.