www.greenbuildermag.com 07.2012
SPECIAL REPORT THE COST OF DEPENDENCY
PASSIVE RESISTANCE
According to John Graby, director of the Royal Institute of Architects, of Ireland’s two million existing units of housing, about a million need major effi ciency up- grades. That’s not unlike the U.S., but Ire- land is diff erent in that building standards for homes are virtually non-existent. “In reality, hardly any buildings are in- spected,” notes Graby. “We need a record of what the certifying person proposes. We don’t have a permit system. It has sort of worked, but only because most banks will look for a plan signed by a competent en- gineer or an architect.” But if the country is to become less en-
ergy dependent, he adds, major shifts in how housing is perceived will be required. The focus too often tends to be on fi xing preventable problems, he notes, not design- ing homes properly from the ground up. “For example,” he says, “there’s a huge
focus now on heat recovery systems. They were being installed in social housing, but the fi lters were not being changed, so they weren’t working properly. Things need to be integrated more thoughtfully. One direction Irish housing might look
is to the German-based Passive House certifi cation. During my tour, I visited a Passive House training center, run by Tomas O’Leary (below), along with the certifi ed Passive House shown at left. O’Leary invited me in to one of his
“Academy” classes, consisting of about a dozen men and women. To my surprise, many were not Irish born, but from conti- nental Europe. Apparently, building ultra- green housing represents a goal and career track that’s an attractive proposition to many European expatriates. Do they already know something the Irish are just begin- ning to discover?
51
Lived-In Model
At 4,000 sq. ft., this Passive House uses about $300 worth of energy annually. To date, however, few Passive House structures have been built in Ireland.
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