Versatile appoints passive house specialist

Versatile appoints passive house specialist

Michael McCarthy, a certified trainer with the Passive House Academy and an international authority on the passive house standard as lead passive house certifier on the MosArt team, has joined Versatile as the new ventilation specialist within its heating, cooling & ventilation division.

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McCarthy, widely known and respected within the industry despite his young years, brings significant passive house, nZEB and mechanical ventilation design experience in both the commercial and residential sector, including a number of ground breaking nZEB and passive house projects in Ireland and internationally. McCarthy led the mechanical design on the passive house consultant team for Ireland’s largest retrofit passive house project, Rochestown House, for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. He also acted as chief passive house certifier on Ireland’s largest multi-unit residential passive house development: Silken Park in City West, Dublin with Durkan Residential. In 2017, McCarthy was the passive house certifier on the tallest certified passive building in the world, the 26-storey student residence at Cornell University on Roosevelt Island, New York.

A Trinity alumnus in both engineering and project management, McCarthy is a certified passive house trainer and designer. His previous roles include education and training manager & director of passive house certification at MosArt Architects, where his work focused mainly on training competencies in passive house construction and design, ultimately mentoring the design and construction teams and looking after the QA and QC on some of the largest passive house projects in the world.

McCarthy will be actively working to expand Versatile’s market share of the residential mechanical ventilation sector, bringing the brand’s demand-control MEV & high performance MVHR series to the industry at a time when building regulations are ramping up for the emergence of nZEB. McCarthy will also be heavily involved in Versatile’s commercial fan coil and decentralised trench ventilation projects & is currently focusing on some high-profile projects including the new school of business at Trinity College Dublin.

Versatile Group MD Andrew Treacy said: “The knowledge, expertise and experience that Michael brings to the company further strengthens our ventilation offering and reinforces our position at the forefront of sustainable building on the island of Ireland. This appointment continues to consolidate the professionalism of our organisation and is further evidence of Versatile’s commitment to green building and nZEB initiatives”.