The vast majority of energy upgrade projects aim for low hanging fruit measures, and risk locking buildings and their occupants into needlessly high energy usage, environmental impact and discomfort. This recent home upgrade on the outskirts of Cork City shows what truly deep retrofit looks like.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in a passive house, a B&B in Devon could be just the ticket. The winner of the private housing award at the 2013 UK Passivhaus Awards, this upgraded 1970s home proves that even existing buildings can be made passive.
While Ireland’s minimum energy performance regulations for dwellings have come on leaps and bounds in recent years, standards for non-domestic buildings have remained untouched. Which makes forward-thinking media production company TVM’s new ultra low energy HQ all the more impressive.
A building doesn’t have to be designed as a cube to meet the passive house standard, but it helps. This as yet uncertified passive house in Carlow shows that, climate permitting, less compact designs can be made passive – by pushing the envelope.
When it comes to actual energy usage, modern buildings rarely perform as expected, with many notionally low energy buildings falling disappointingly short. As discussion continues about how to solve the performance gap, one pioneering Welsh passive building has a different kind of performance gap – it’s using 40% less energy than anticipated.
The winner of the Social/Group Housing award at the 2013 UK Passivhaus Awards, Lancaster Cohousing’s Forgebank development in Lancashire is riddled with green features. Not only are all of its 41 homes passive house certified – it scores top marks in the UK’s Code for Sustainable Homes too.
Virtually any building, anywhere can achieve certified passive house status, as these four transatlantic buildings show – including a Viennese skyscraper, an upgrade to an NYC home predating the Empire State Building, a German museum housing valuable works of art and a net zero energy home in New Mexico.
In spite of a consensus that most buildings need deep energy upgrades, both Ireland and the UK have barely scratched the surface. Joseph Curtin – one of Ireland’s leading energy policy wonks –discusses how to kick start en masse upgrade work.