From the Construct Ireland archives

Mandatory for virtually all building types since January of this year, Building Energy Ratings have been met with little fanfare. Construct Ireland proposes a cost-free method of levelling the marketplace by ensuring compliance and increasing awareness of the BERs legal status. Jason Walsh explains.

Set in the shadow of Macgillycuddy's Reeks, Killorglin, County Kerry is a dramatic and rugged location best known as a tourist destination and home to Puck Fair. It’s also home, however, to one of Ireland’s most successful companies, FEXCO, which has opened its new low-energy corporate headquarters in the town.

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.

Green architect Minka McInerney profiles six unique green buildings including a cardboard school building, a globe-trotting recycled museum & the tallest timber building in the world

Earlier this summer SEI announced that, from December, external wall insulation systems must have Irish Agrément certification to be eligible for support under the Home Energy Saving scheme. But many in the green building sector are critical of the decision, and some are questioning the value and purpose of Agrément. Lenny Antonelli reports.

An advocate of sustainable building long before it was fashionable, Bill Quigley of NuTech Renewables has subsequently seen the mainstreaming of sustainability at first hand, having input into substantial projects for Leahy Bros, MKN and GEDA Construction amongst others. In their latest project, NuTech are working with Wicklow County Council on a social housing scheme with impressively high energy performance targets to meet, as Quigley explains.

Aine Mc Elhinney discovers that the threat radon poses to private water supply needs addressing to help prevent lung cancer deaths

 

If you’re applying for planning permission to build in Cappagh, North Ballymun or Northwest Balbriggan, 30% of your heating must come from renewable energy, and your heating must be less than 50Kwh/m2 per annum—roughly twice the standard of most new homes.

Imaginosity, the new children's museum building in Sandyford's Beacon South Quarter development, is getting the Austrian eco-house treatment, combining low energy, modular construction with a plethora of low carbon energy technologies. Jason Walsh visited the site to take a look.

Ever since the seminal Agenda 21 was endorsed by 150 nations including Ireland in 1992, increasing lip service has been paid to sustainable development in everything from government policy to manufacturers’ claims. However, as John Hearne describes, in Tralee Town Council’s Rath Oraigh housing development, local action has been taken with not only local, but global benefits that embody the principles of sustainable development.