From the Construct Ireland archives

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.

Brian Homan, Joint Managing Director of leading consulting engineers Homan O’Brien Associates describes a nursing home currently being built that is adopting a sustainable building approach to deliver healthy, comfortable accommodation at low running costs.

As Construct Ireland goes to press, the construction industry awaits Ministers Dick Roche and Noel Dempsey to sign off the long overdue timetable for implementing the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, a piece of legislation set to make energy performance a key factor in property sales. But can Ireland train up enough auditors to label buildings by January 2006?

Conventional wisdom dictates that higher construction costs — for instance to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions — would either squeeze developers’ profit margins or increase house prices. Tom Dunne, Head of DIT’s School of Real Estate and Construction Economics, reveals how misguided this view could be...

Kevin O’Flaherty’s development overlooking Galway Bay combines impressive energy saving techniques with the sorts of features that buyers of high-spec homes have grown to expect, as John Hearne discovers.

Built in 2004, Tomás O’Leary's house in Wicklow was the first in the country to be certified by the Passive House Institute — but how would it fare when subjected to a BER assessment six years later?

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.

The cement industry is well known as being amongst the worst culprits for emitting CO2, a seemingly unavoidable side effect of its production. However, as Peter Seymour, Business Development Manager with Ecocem Ireland Ltd explains, there is a strong, eco-friendly competitive alternative to Portland cement that is being specified in a variety of high profile construction projects in Ireland.

Ireland — along with much of the western world — relies on the International Energy Agency‘s oil production forecasts. But are they reliable, asks Lenny Antonelli?

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.