Issue 37 - passivehouseplus.co.uk

For over 40 years, Grant Engineering has operated at the forefront of the heating industry in Ireland through its design and manufacture of innovative heating solutions.

Leading Irish heating supplier Unipipe is now supplying Krinner ground screws to the Irish market through its subsidiary company, Ground Screws Ireland.

A chance purchase on eBay leads buildings physics expert Toby Cambray to admire the aesthetics and mechanics of old scientific instruments.

Following its commitment to retrofit one quarter of dwellings in the country by 2030, the Irish government has now announced the establishment of four new centres of excellence for retrofit training, building on the training approach developed to help the industry meet the NZEB standard for new buildings. Workers from state-owned company Bord na Móna are among the first to undergo training as the company transitions out of peat extraction.

The extensive energy and ventilation upgrade of 12 run-down bungalows at College View sheltered housing scheme in Wexford town not only transformed the lives and comfort of residents, but an extensive period of post-occupancy study has yielded important lessons for future projects.

This issue features the University of Chicago’s Warren Woods ecological field station, which was the first passive certified building of its type in North America.

This all-wood passive-certified home in the village of Kippen was built directly by its architect owners, who not only achieved the passive house standard but did so with an ecological approach that sought to use building materials ultra-efficiently and make it easy to deconstruct and recycle the building at the end of its life.

A new passive house on Galway Bay beautifully blends vernacular design with touches of Arts & Crafts while still appearing thoroughly contemporary, but under its neat exterior is the thinking of an architectural practice striving to reduce the environmental impact of its buildings, inspired by the Architects Declare pledge.

The concept of building back better and greener, popular early in the pandemic, is now in danger of being abandoned in the rush to return to ‘normal’ — but we always have the power to shape what normal is, writes Dr Peter Rickaby.

In his latest column, Dr Marc O’Riain looks back at two American prototypes for the passive house standard that embraced heat pump technology as well as principles of superinsulation and airtightness.

Angle House in north London is a wonderful example of sustainable urban housing: modest in scale and built on a run-down site in the heart of north London, it boasts a passive approach to energy efficiency and some beautiful design touches.

With increasing attention turning to cutting carbon emissions from existing homes to meet carbon reduction targets, Duncan Smith, housing asset and energy strategy manager at Renfrewshire County Council in Scotland, argues that approaches which improve comfort and dramatically reduce energy bills must be front and centre.

It’s time to make the passive house standard a requirement of local development plans across Ireland, says Mel Reynolds.

New research has confirmed the effectiveness of Daikin’s patented streamer technology, which successfully inactivated more than 99.9 per cent of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, after irradiating the virus for three hours.

The Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board (WWETB), one the country’s leading providers of practical construction training for nearly zero energy building (NZEB), has moved most of its NZEB training courses online to facilitate critical upskilling during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Leading energy consultancy BERcerts.ie has advised homeowners considering renovation projects to be aware of their potential obligations under Part L of the building regulations. The regulations set mandatory energy performance targets for dwellings undergoing “major renovation”.

Establishing Waterford Stanley as one of the most recognised and popular heat pump brands on the Irish market is the goal of the company’s new business development manager, Donal Reilly.

Mannok’s Aircrete blocks are often specified at the wall-to-floor junction to tackle thermal bridging, but specifying them for the entire inner leaf of a cavity wall can yield significant energy savings and an improvement in comfort, according to the company.

Sustainable flooring manufacturer Forbo has launched a new line-up of high traffic acoustic vinyl flooring that includes a new glue free flooring range.

Modular timber frame manufacturer Lidan Designs has won the Future Focus Award at the 2021 National Enterprise Awards.

Engineers Ireland has announced the launch of a new Women in Engineering group.

In the first of our new #BuildingLife ambassador spotlight series, Passive House Plus is profiling leaders who have endorsed the Irish Green Building Council’s call to address the environmental impacts of buildings across their life cycle, starting with Francis-Noel Duffy TD for Dublin South West and Green Party’s spokesperson on housing.

Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI) has launched a new green loan product offering a discount of up to 0.5 per cent on loans to home builders for developments certified with the Irish Green Building Council's Home Performance Index.

The government has announced a new €45 million programme of investment in the retrofifit of local authority housing. This includes an initial investment of €35m for the retrofitting of 1,293 homes, plus an additional €10m to be allocated to local authorities who demonstrate an ability to complete additional works this year.

Technological University Dublin has announced the launch of a new four-year degree programme in sustainable timber technology.

Leading Irish heating system manufacturer Firebird has recently completed a full heating installation at a scheme of 16 new build dwellings in Athlone, Co Westmeath, all designed to achieve the NZEB standard and an A2 BER.

Integrated Materials Solutions (IMS) has published the first environmental product declaration (EPD) in Ireland for an aggregate product, for its Greenstone recycled aggregate, the first construction product of its type in Ireland. The EPD shows that Greenstone has a carbon footprint of just 5 per cent that of virgin aggregate.

A Proctor Group (APG) have stressed the importance of taking account of the HAMM (heat, air, moisture movement) principles when designing buildings, taking account of the effect of insulation type and placement along with the vapour permeability of the various layers.

Leading wood fibre insulation manufacturer Steico has announced plans to build a new factory with three production lines at its recently acquired site in Gromadka, Poland.

A big part of a comfortable household is having good indoor air quality and a comfortable air temperature. Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) is an efficient way of providing the necessary ventilation with little heat loss.