Cairn secures passive house certification for three Dublin developments

Irish housebuilder Cairn has secured international certification for its growing passive house pipeline, with three major Dublin developments seeking validation from the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt.

The developments, Pipers Square in Charlestown, Whitehaven in Santry and Cooper Square in Seven Mills, are among the largest passive house schemes underway in Ireland. Across the three sites, over 850 homes have been completed or handed over, with passive house units now accounting for one-third of Cairn's total output.

Pipers Square, built in partnership with approved housing body Respond and Fingal County Council, is set to become one of the largest passive house housing schemes in Europe, with 590 units on completion.

Passive house buildings are designed to maintain a stable interior temperature with minimal mechanical heating or cooling, through high levels of insulation, triple-glazed windows, airtight construction, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. Certified passive houses typically use around 90 per cent less energy for heating than conventionally built homes.

Cairn says the homes are designed to reduce energy demand by up to 50 per cent compared to standard new builds, lowering household utility bills at a time of rising energy costs across Europe.

Madeleina Loughrey Grant, chief strategy and sustainability officer at Cairn, said the company had chosen the passive house route because it believed in "building homes that perform for residents over time," adding that the standard was "practical, proven and scalable."

Dr Wolfgang Feist, who founded the Passive House Institute and lived in the world's first certified passive house in Darmstadt from 1991, said the standard offered "a proven approach to achieving very low energy demand while ensuring excellent indoor comfort," particularly given current energy price increases across Europe.

International certification from the Passive House Institute provides independent verification of building performance, and Cairn says it represents a more rigorous standard than Ireland's existing building energy rating system.