Irish news - passivehouseplus.ie

A comparison between two pairs of households in Switzerland suggests that people do not reliably compensate for lack of mechanical ventilation with more window opening.

A new analysis of the exposure of London households to indoor pollutants highlights “systematic inequalities” in exposure, overwhelmingly driven by factors beyond the control of those people worst affected.

Almost a quarter of new nearly zero energy building (NZEB) homes may be non-compliant with Part L of the regulations, new analysis by Passive House Plus has revealed.

The winners of the international Passive House Award will be announced on Friday 10 September as part of the 25th International Passive House Conference, which is fully available online. Tickets to the conference are still available.

While the Irish government is delivering CO2 monitors to schools to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, and some European regions have mandated the use of such monitors in all buildings open to the public, the UK has yet to introduce such measures and has removed the requirement for mask-wearing in schools.

Passive House Plus editor Jeff Colley will be speaking at the TEDx Tralee event on 15 October.

South West College’s new Erne Campus building in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, is the world’s largest, and the first educational building, to be certified to the passive house premium standard, the Passive House Institute has confirmed.

The passive house standard is celebrating its 30th birthday this year. The world’s first passive houses were built in Darmstadt, Germany in 1991.

On June 8, 2021 Passive House Plus, in association with Farrat, chaired a hugely informative roundtable on thermal breaks. If you missed it, the video can now be viewed online.

Munster Joinery has published the first environmental product declaration (EPD) for a window under the Irish EPD system.

Irish low carbon cement company Ecocem has announced €22.5 million in equity investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) and Breakthrough Energy Ventures-Europe (BEV-E), venture capital funds that are part Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy coalition, which seeks to accelerate the global drive towards net zero carbon emissions. 

Engineers Ireland has announced the launch of a new Women in Engineering group.

In the first of our new #BuildingLife ambassador spotlight series, Passive House Plus is profiling leaders who have endorsed the Irish Green Building Council’s call to address the environmental impacts of buildings across their life cycle, starting with Francis-Noel Duffy TD for Dublin South West and Green Party’s spokesperson on housing.

Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI) has launched a new green loan product offering a discount of up to 0.5 per cent on loans to home builders for developments certified with the Irish Green Building Council's Home Performance Index.

The government has announced a new €45 million programme of investment in the retrofifit of local authority housing. This includes an initial investment of €35m for the retrofitting of 1,293 homes, plus an additional €10m to be allocated to local authorities who demonstrate an ability to complete additional works this year.

Technological University Dublin has announced the launch of a new four-year degree programme in sustainable timber technology.

Residential retrofits must ensure ventilation is carefully considered in order to avoid an increase in radon gas levels, researchers at NUI Galway in Ireland have found.

Heat pumps rise, PV falls and fabric stands still.

Nine out of ten readers of Passive House Plus have made decisions on building or upgrading projects in response to articles in the magazine, according to the results of a survey of readers of the magazine’s Irish edition.

Industry-leading mechanical ventilation company BEAM Vacuum & Ventilation has launched a new mobile phone app for their award-winning, next generation HERU heat recovery ventilation range.

The second edition of the book Understanding Passivhaus by Emma Walshaw of First In Architecture is out now. The book is designed to provide a brief, clear and complete guide to building a passive home.

NI still plans to tighten energy rules for new build

On the five-year anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) launched a campaign to decarbonise Ireland’s built environment across its whole life cycle. The campaign is backed by Passive House Plus.

Embodied carbon is the next great challenge for the building sector. For the group’s latest update, Marion Jammet of the Irish Green Building Council discusses initiatives underway at both Irish and European level to further cut the carbon footprint of the built environment.

Results of a new five-year study of recycled concrete show that it performs as well, and in several cases even better, than conventional concrete.

Heat pumps dominate & mechanical ventilation grows, but compliance risks emerge

Before it was halted until January 2021, the Grenfell Tower inquiry heard a series of damning testimonies on the culture towards fire safety within leading building material manufacturers and certification bodies in the years leading up to the fire.

The need for decisive movement on deep retrofit has never been more pronounced, given the twin needs for urgent, radical action to tackle the climate crisis and jobs-intensive stimulus at a time of great uncertainty caused by the pandemic. In the following statement, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment sheds light on its progress in delivering on the government’s deep retrofit pledges.

Simon Bell of the Passive House Association of Ireland outlines how the organisation can help clients, professionals and suppliers to deliver the passive house standard.

Diageo has chosen developer Ballymore as its partner to deliver the transformation of 12.6 acres of its iconic St James’s Gate site into the first “zero carbon” district in Dublin.