At first glance, this sprawling house in Blackrock would appear to be a nightmare candidate for a deep energy upgrade — large and sprawling, and with a mix of structures built at different times and with different materials. But guided by the passive house standard, the team behind it managed to turn a G-rated energy guzzler into a healthy and very-low energy family home – complete with an A rating.
This new award-winning two-building extension to a primary school in the south of Wales delivers healthy, ultra low energy school buildings – one of which is passive house certified – while pushing the boundaries of timber engineering.
The deep retrofit of this two-storey 1950s house in Cork City transformed a draughty, poorly-insulated dwelling into a comfortable, low-energy home for one family – coming close to the Enerphit standard in the process.
Upgrading a historic home to the passive house standard typically means leaving the façade untouched to preserve the building’s historic appearance, but the team behind this fully passive retrofit in Kensal Green took a totally different approach.
This pioneering deep energy upgrade of a 1960s home in Wicklow will take place in phases over at least five years, with the aim of making it more affordable to go passive by renovating on a step-by-step basis.
A deep retrofit of this 1960s block-built home turned it into a modern ultra low-energy home that emphasises wood, light and natural materials.
The abandoned husk of a 1960s school building sounds a very long way from a comfortable, ultra low energy family home. Thanks to a remarkable upgrade effort – influenced by reading Passive House Plus – one Fermanagh family are reaping the rewards of one such transformation.
Builder Conor Walsh undertook an ambitious partial rebuild, partial retrofit to this 1960s bungalow, delivering deep energy savings and turning it into a modern family home
This unique energy retrofit in Bristol walked a fine line between ambition and pragmatism to deliver a healthy, comfortable and ultra-low energy home
This pioneering upgrade project, completed in 2009, turned a Victorian redbrick in Birmingham into one of the UK’s greenest homes. Along with a much wider ecological agenda, the house employed fabric first principles of insulation and airtightness, and met passive house design targets at a time when the standard was still in its infancy in the UK.
It’s taken Mick Kiernan more than 10 years to upgrade his Cork bungalow, and it’s still not finished. But along the way he discovered the passive house standard and let its principles guide his way towards a warm, airtight and healthy home.
The upgrade of two social housing blocks in Manchester to the Enerphit standard demonstrates how deep energy retrofit can play a part in turning old, run-down estates into vibrant, comfortable, low energy communities.
This ambitious and complicated project — a partial upgrade, partial rebuild of an old detached property in south Dublin — is on course to achieve the onerous Enerphit standard for retrofit.
Grosvenor’s upgrade of two historic properties in Belgravia brings high-end passive housing to Westminster.
This 1960s Galway home was turned into a passive house - and is costing just €55 per year to heat.
Six years after it was completed, Passive House Plus takes a look at a pioneering low energy upgrade that went on to become the UK’s first certified Enerphit project, to find out how it has performed — and what lessons have been learned.
Built in the 1970s, Rochestown House was a cramped, cold and damp social housing block in Sallynoggin, Co Dublin that has now been completely transformed, thanks to a deep energy retrofit inspired by passive house principles.
A passive retrofit in Co Meath offers a template that could be applied across much of the Irish housing stock: a long, dark, 1970s bungalow was transformed into a bright modern home that’s now warm and comfortable.
If you’ve ever wanted to take a passive house for a road test, one holiday letting on the coast of west Cork may be too good an opportunity to turn down. The aptly named Sea Spray – an as yet uncertified Enerphit upgraded bungalow – is a bona fide triumph in the face of adversity.
Hitting Enerphit – the passive house standard for retrofits – wasn’t challenging enough for one Yorkshire retrofit project. The team also had to stop the building falling down, and avoid wholesale changes to the building’s external appearance.
Britain and Ireland’s post-war social housing blocks are seen as ugly and uncomfortable, and suffer from high energy bills, damp and mould. But three ambitious renovation projects show the answer doesn’t always lie in demolition.
There was a time when insulating an historic property meant treading lightly on its building fabric. But today, guided by building physics, passive house designers continue to push the boundaries of retrofit by bringing old homes up to modern standards of super-insulation. This project is the third such deep retrofit to an historic London property by Green Tomato Energy.
The general consensus is that it’s not appropriate to upgrade historic buildings to avant garde energy efficiency levels, creating a sense that conservation of the natural and built environments may be mutually exclusive concerns. Not so, argue Arboreal Architecture’s Harry Paticas and passive house engineer Alan Clarke in an updated version of a paper presented at the 2014 International Passive House Conference, about a highly experimental upgrade to a London townhouse that may point to a sustainable solution.
Tina Holt had experience advising homeowners on energy efficiency, so when she wanted a low energy home, buying a run-down 1950s dwelling and aiming to turn it passive was an obvious step. She tells her own story below.