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In an ideal world every occupied building in Ireland would be energy upgraded to the highest standard, tapping into numerous benefits for the building occupant, the construction industry and society as a whole. Construct Ireland is calling for the introduction of pay as you save, a repayment model which offers the potential of making significant energy upgrade investments achievable in the vast majority of Irish buildings, as Jeff Colley reveals.
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Nothing focuses the mind like a target. The growing impact of Building
Energy Ratings (BER) is increasingly encouraging Irish people to aim
for the highest energy rating they can. Patrick and Niamh Daly’sJohn Hearne house in Mullingar takes this trend to the next level, using a myriad
of sustainable green materials and technologies to become a net energy
producer and go beyond the limit of the BER scale. visited the nearly completed house to find out more.
At his site in Clonkill, Co. Westmeath, Patrick Daly set out to build the lowest energy house in Ireland. As the project approaches completion, he anticipates a negative energy consumption of between 25 kW/m2/a and 30kW/m2/a. His home will generate rather than consume energy.
Daly, an energy consultant with his own practice, BESRaC, and former lecturer in environmental design at DIT is calling the project the Integrated Low Energy and Environmental impact Design (iLEEiD) demonstration house. It incorporates Passive House Institute (PHI) principles of passive solar gain, super insulation, air-tightness and heat recovery ventilation, and is targeted to substantially exceed the PHI space heating target of 15 kWh/m2/yr, thereby removing the need for space heating.
A solar thermal array is the primary source of domestic hot water. This is backed up by a small heat pump fed by dual collectors; a ground source array and an innovative warm grey-water recycling tank. Systems integration will boost the efficiency of the renewable solutions, while a network of photovoltaic (PV) panels is expected to comfortably meet the house’s residual energy requirements, all of which have been reduced to a minimum.
Daly is also keen to stress that the project has not sought the zero energy target at other environmental costs; he has also made extensive use of ecological materials and local tradesmen in order to minimise the building’s carbon footprint and embodied energy.
On first glance, the building’s form is not passive house textbook – this is a large, diffused house including home office with a split level interior, and a stair core that will ultimately be glazed off. Orientation and layout however combine to override the anomaly of the building’s form. The long, narrow site lies just five degrees off the north/south axis, with the front elevation facing north. Office space, all bathrooms, utility, plant-room, the stairs and some bedrooms have been concentrated here, with just 16 per cent of the house’s total glazing. By comparison, 62 per cent is found on the southerly elevation and 22 per cent divided between east and west. “Low temperature based rooms are all north,” says Daly, “and all the main living spaces and the bedrooms are south. So living, kitchen and dining areas have a complete south aspect.” The site itself is unobstructed on all but the south west side, where a bank of mature ash trees shelters the house from the prevailing wind.
The front door is housed within a glazed air-lobby, a semi-external area which lies outside the conditioned space. In addition to the main front door, there’s an additional ‘informal’ access door which gives direct access to the utility room. Here, within this block, all of the house’s ‘wet’ areas are found. Ensuite and main bathroom are upstairs, with the plant room, utility room and downstairs bathroom directly below. Containing these facilities in such a compact space eliminates long wet service runs and consequent heat losses. Downstairs, the kitchen and living room run the full length of the southern elevation and are extensively glazed to maximise solar gains. Upstairs, the traditional long, dark corridor is avoided by opening up the landing space with an open-plan, fully-glazed family den which lies between the two bedroom wings. Here too, high level opening vents provide additional natural light and summer ventilation. Because of the risks of thermal buoyancy in summer, Daly intends to close off the stairs using glass doors. “Otherwise,” he says, “in the summer particularly we could end up with much higher temperatures up here.”
Glazing is kept to a minimum to the north
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