Issue 9, Vol 5 Out Now
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Featured Article
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Planning ahead for Ireland’s electricity supply is by no means a simple matter, given the range of unprecedented issues that are coming to the fore. Massive cuts in emissions must be achieved, whilst decisive action is required to ensure adequate supply of electricity at a time when usage is spiraling. Richard Douthwaite explains the balance that Ireland must achieve between efficient local generation and usage and ensuring optimal interconnection to global renewable electricity supply
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Passive Aggressive |
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Passive Housing
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Page 1 of 6
Imagine moving into a house without a heating system – what would you
do? Contact the developer and demand they put one in immediately? Call
a solicitor and sue the builder? Or sit back and enjoy living in a
house, designed to meet your expectations of comfort without any
recourse to a space heating system. Jason Walsh met the people behind Ireland’s drive toward the passive house.
Designed to ultra-low energy use standards, passive houses require little or no energy for space heating or cooling. The first passive buildings were built in Darmstadt, Germany in 1990 and occupied in 1991. The concept of the voluntary standard was pioneered by Dr. Wolfgang Feist, who went on to found the Passivhaus Institut in 1996. The institute operates as an independent research institution employing building physicists, mathematicians and civil, mechanical and environmental engineers to perform research and development on efficient energy use.
Currently Ireland has only one certified passive house, a fact which appears to contradict claims of a growing groundswell of interest. However, dozens of other homes have been designed and built as passive houses, with many more at the planning stage. Passivhaus Institut certified products are finding their way onto the market, with prominent examples including windows from companies such as Optiwin, Internorm and Niveau. Add to this the roughly 70 Irish delegates including developers, architects, sustainable product suppliers and local authority officials who attended the recent 2008 Passivhaus Institut conference in Nuremberg, and Irish interest in the passive house is confirmed.
“It’s an explosion,” said architect and passive house specialist Tomás Ó Leary, “with the rapid changes in the building regulations we’re effectively heading for passive houses to be standard.”
Ó Leary built Ireland’s first officially certified passive house – his own home – in 2005. Located in Ballykeppogue, County Wicklow, Ó Leary’s house has served as something of a prototype with Ó Leary’s architectural practice MosArt terming-up with consulting engineers Energy 365 to open a passive house ‘centre of excellence’ in Rathnew, County Wicklow late last year.
Since then there has been a massive growth of interest in passive houses but regulatory developments are also having an effect. After an unprecedented 40% energy and carbon dioxide reduction kicks in to Part L of the Building Regulations in July, an additional 20% reduction has been signaled for 2010. This should bring our regulations within touching distance of the passive house standard, prompting some to ask why the country can’t go that little bit further and implement the passive standard as a basic requirement for all Irish housing.
The usual objection to passive houses is that the standard is simply too difficult to meet. In fact, the basic requirements for a passive house are relatively simple: attention to detail in orientation and use of passive solar, good insulation, good glazing, heat recovery ventilation and, crucially, air-tightness.
Two distinctly different approaches to building passive houses exist in projects by Scandinavian Homes (title pic) and MosArt (above)
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