A family Bed & Breakfast in Glenties, Co Donegal built during the last boom has lowered its energy bills and improved comfort thanks to a suite of upgrade measures that included a new Daikin air source heat pump.

Tramex, the Irish manufacturer of moisture meters for the building design and construction industries, has emphasised the critical importance of testing and monitoring moisture conditions within buildings as airtightness and insulation standards continue to increase.

A passive house new build has commenced in Guernsey and, when certified, it will be the first project in the Channel Islands built to the standard. Located on the west coast of the island, Le Catillion is a single-storey dwelling being constructed for an architect and his wife as their low energy holiday home.

A deep retrofit project in Lancaster has achieved possibly the best ever airtightness result in the UK for a retrofit project. Designed by leading passive house architect Mark Siddall, Shepherd’s Barn is a super insulated, low energy barn conversion which incorporates high standards of airtightness and an MVHR system.

A new apartment development in one of South London’s up and coming districts is making use of Magply boards’ fire resistance and other performance characteristics, as the lining to a bespoke timber frame package.

NBT, the UK supplier of Pavatex insulation and airtightness products, has completed the first phase of a merger with building products giant, Soprema UK.

A new Dublin passive house is aiming to achieve the required standard of airtightness using using an innovative new application of Blowerproof liquid airtight membrane. Blowerproof liquid airtight membrane is a BBA certified product with Class C fire rating, which has been used widely on passive house projects across Europe for the last 10 years.

Towards Zero Energy Ltd has just completed eight months monitoring of five dwellings in the Dublin region that it upgraded to A1 BERs last year under SEAI’s Deep Retrofit Pilot Programme. The dwellings were typical suburban 1950s to 1970s two-storey, semi-detached/terraced houses and all were three or four bedrooms in size.

The entire UK housing market — from self-builders and house buyers through to large-scale developers, housing associations and local authorities — must start demanding a much higher level of quality from new homes in order to ensure the market delivers buildings that are genuinely healthy, sustainable and low energy. That is according to Will Kirkman, managing director of leading sustainable building product supplier Ecomerchant.

Green Building Store has announced the launch of a new service that is now included at no extra charge in its product packages.

Build-Lite, the leading manufacturer and supplier of innovative building products for low energy buildings, has announced that its Future Found insulated foundation system has received BBA certification. Future Found is a trenchless foundation system, manufactured in the UK, that uses high-density EPS insulation.

Ecological Building Systems have announced the addition of a new thermal modelling service to their existing array of technical services. Ecological technical team member Joe Fitzgerald recently successfully completed the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) approved thermal modellers examination in Dublin Technological University. Fitzgerald is now listed on the NSAI thermal modellers register.

VentHeat, a new Irish company specialising in heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for passive house and low energy buildings, has launched the Pichler PKOM4 compact heat pump system to the Irish market. The system combines heating, cooling, ventilation and domestic hot water in one passive house certified unit with a footprint of less than 0.75 m2.

Antrim-based company Showersave say that the imminent inclusion of wastewater heat recovery in the new DEAP 4.2.0 software, set to be launched on 16 September, will provide developers, designers and builders with a simple and cost-effective new way to help ensure Part L compliance and achieve better building energy ratings.

A new property development company in the north-west is putting the passive house standard at the heart of its business. Leeds-based Pure Haus is currently embarking on its very first project, a scheme of two high-specification houses in Oakenshaw, Bradford that will be built to the passive house standard, and is designed by architects ArkleBoyce.

Kingspan Insulated Panels and Kingspan Insulation have jointly been shortlisted for the sustainable manufacturing award at the prestigious The Manufacturer MX Awards, recognising the company’s “commitment to sustainable practice at all levels of their business.”

Low carbon concrete blocks are now widely available on the Irish market – bringing up to 50% reductions in embodied CO2 – and Passive House Plus helped make it happen.

Leading low energy retrofit contractor Encon has teamed up with Waterford Credit Union to offer low interest loans to anyone thinking undertaking of a home energy upgrade, in a bid to help develop the retrofit market in the region.

An international standard ‘E-Thermal’ environmental test facility designed to assist Irish SMEs in developing new sustainable heating products has formally been opened at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology.

An innovative Wicklow company is embracing the circular economy by manufacturing soundproofing boards from recycled materials.