From the Construct Ireland archives

Tom Woolley, Professor of Architecture at Queens University Belfast and Editor of the Green Building Handbook, draws attention to the recent event which demonstrated the potential and importance of sustainable building in Ireland.

Can sustainability and social housing be married in one development? Construct Ireland investigates a ground breaking social housing project in West Cork.

An increasing number of sustainable homes are being built in Ireland but many of them are in rural areas, and yet, Ireland is an increasingly urban society. Jason Walsh looks at one recent attempt to renovate a small terraced house in inner-city Dublin, bringing it up to modern environmental and energy efficiency standards.

Construct Ireland tracked down the busy director of Limerick Civil Trust to talk about the sterling work already done, current projects and to ponder the implications of recent FAS cutbacks.

A recent study instigated by the American Environmental Protection Agency has identified indoor air quality as one of the top five urgent environmental risks to public health.

As Ireland struggles to meet its commitments to reducing CO2 emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, the renewable energy sector continues to flourish as wind farms rapidly develop and solar energy becomes increasingly viable

Earlier this year constructireland.ie broke the news of the introduction of the pilot Home Energy Saving Scheme, a new grant funding programme designed to stimulate the en masse refurbishment of Ireland’s poorly performing existing housing stock. John Hearne travelled to one of the pilot areas to see how the scheme is working on the ground, and discover how the scheme is developing.

Conventional wisdom dictates that higher construction costs — for instance to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions — would either squeeze developers’ profit margins or increase house prices. Tom Dunne, Head of DIT’s School of Real Estate and Construction Economics, reveals how misguided this view could be...

As our recognition of the problems of dwindling fossil fuel supplies and climate change grows, the need to reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions of our homes becomes increasingly apparent. Leading energy consultant Patrick Waterfield describes why and how we should switch to zero heating homes.

As Construct Ireland goes to press, the construction industry awaits Ministers Dick Roche and Noel Dempsey to sign off the long overdue timetable for implementing the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, a piece of legislation set to make energy performance a key factor in property sales. But can Ireland train up enough auditors to label buildings by January 2006?