Issue 47 - passivehouseplus.co.uk

Sometimes a building comes along that does almost too much. Passive house stalwarts Kirsty Maguire Architects’ latest opus is an award-winning architectural, engineering, and sustainability feat – which asks questions not just about how we build, but how we live.

Fancy owning an energy positive, timber-based passive house in one of the most desirable locations in England, without the hassle of having to build it yourself? A new three-house development nearing completion in Hertfordshire may be just the ticket.

As the grid gets greener and the case for heat pumps as a decarbonisation silver bullet becomes increasingly compelling, questions are starting to be asked about how far we need to go with retrofitting building fabric – or whether we need improve fabric at all. We ignore fabric at our peril, warns Toby Cambray.

Near the peak of the Celtic Tiger – at a time when developers were throwing up often sub-standard homes at a record pace, one self-build project pointed to a different approach, writes Dr Marc Ó Riain.

The proof in the pudding with a notionally low energy building is in the eating. Since moving into their new passive house a little under two years ago, the Murray family’s heating costs have been scarcely believable – in a home that also blitzes the embodied carbon targets in the RIAI 2030 Climate Challenge.

A number of Ireland’s largest house builders are turning to the passive house standard, to meet the need for proven approaches to delivering high performance sustainable buildings.

Irish homeowners can now borrow €5,000 to €75,000 at significantly lower interest rates to retrofit their homes, thanks to a new €500m government-backed scheme.

All new homes in Europe must meet binding embodied carbon reduction targets and produce zero on site emissions by 2030, due to changes led by Irish Green Party MEP Ciarán Cuffe.

Highly polluting cements are to be ruled out of public sector projects in Ireland from September, due to new government public procurement rules.

Recent analysis has suggested a slowdown in the property sector for 2024, but what impact might a drop in inflation have? Mel Reynolds runs the numbers.