Displaying items by tag: Fabric first - passivehouseplus.ie

The imperative to engage in evidence-based deep retrofit grows by the day. With the UK government dragging its heels, Peter Rickaby finds signs of hope in local initiatives, and in burgeoning Irish efforts.

A new housing development in Naas, Co. Kildare is showing the way forward for Irish residential development, with its combination of fabric-first construction and the latest heat pump technology from Daikin.

SMET Building Products, which supplies a wide range of products for low energy and fabric-first construction, picked up the award for best small business at the Greater Newry Business Awards,  organised by Newry Chamber of Commerce & Trade, on 28 September at the town’s Canal Hotel.

Builder Conor Walsh undertook an ambitious partial rebuild, partial retrofit to this 1960s bungalow, delivering deep energy savings and turning it into a modern family home 

This pioneering upgrade project, completed in 2009, turned a Victorian redbrick in Birmingham into one of the UK’s greenest homes. Along with a much wider ecological agenda, the house employed fabric first principles
of insulation and airtightness, and met passive house design targets at a time when the standard was still in its infancy in the UK.