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.

SEAI recently proposed a series of changes to Deap — the software tool used to calculate BERs — including a reduction in its primary energy factor. But while this will benefit electrically-powered heating devices, some in the industry still feel systems such as heat pumps are disadvantaged by Deap and the BER system

Intended as a landmark not only architecturally, Áras Chill Dara sets an example for large scale sustainable building, as Construct Ireland’s Jason Walsh found out.

Inside the Lewis Glucksman Eco Gallery, with John Burgess of Arup Consulting

“The thing to bear in mind is that even though it got knocked down, every single window sill went into another house, all the flooring and slates went into another house”, says Stephen Porter of Stonebrokers on the recent demolition of Lough na Vale in Sandymount.

External insulation examined: the reasons why placing insulation outside makes most sense, with six example projects

For the first time in several years, 2007 will see a budget deficit in Ireland so the question must be asked: where does this leave state aid for sustainable building? Construct Ireland’s Jeff Colley and Jason Walsh propose a new approach to improving the energy efficiency of existing homes that might even fix a few of the difficulties seen in the last eighteen months

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.

With oil prices nearing record highs, forward thinking developers who’ve taken the initiative to incorporate green aspects into their projects are showing a buoyancy that starkly contradicts the downturn, as John Hearne reveals.

Marie Stamp, Senior Trade Commissioner at the Canadian Embassy, Dublin, discusses the merits of Super E home build.