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SHOWHOUSE

Our show house viewings and presentations are available every Wednesday at 3pm. No need to book.

Extra show house on:
Sat, Apr 13th 2024 at 12pm-3pm

The presentation is at 12pm.

How to find us…

More previous houses built (click here for photo gallery)...

Energy performance

Energy performance2022-05-11T09:57:10+01:00
Passive house standard
International passive house day

What is a passive house?    

A passive house is an extremely thermally efficient building which allows a comfortable indoor temperature of 20°C to be maintained all year around while only requiring minimal space heating 2-3 months of the year.

A passive house is an energy performance standard, similar to the fuel consumption in a car, it is simply a very strict energy consumption goal for houses. This requirement has been set by the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt and sets the requirements listed to the right.

The passive house standard does not take into account the energy needed to build a house or how natural/sustainable the materials from which its made are. See our ecology and philosophy section to read more about this here

  • Space heating energy demand must not exceed 10W per square meter peak demand or 15kWh per square meter per year in heating or cooling of the house.
  • Air tightness with a maximum of 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 Pascals pressure
  • Maximum energy used for all domestic applications must not exceed 60 kWh per square meter
  • Thermal comfort requirements must be met all year around
Passive U-value wall foundation

How much does it cost to heat one of our passive houses?

Very little, but as mentioned in the heating section the running cost depends on a few things. The size of the house, the number of people living there and the heating system being used. In order to demonstrate this, we will give two house examples with their respective costs.

Skagerack 188

173m2 – 2025 sq ft

€650 per year total

Insulated timber frame wall

This €650 is the full running cost per year including hot water, lights, heating and appliances, for one person living in this house.

This house has achieved such a low overall cost thanks to 10 electric PV solar panels producing electricity and heating water as well as an air to air heat pump heating in the winter months.

Hibernia 164 (our showhouse)

269m2 – 3220 sq ft

€395 per year space heating

Central heating bill passive low energy house

This €395 is the cost per year to heat the house using electric underfloor heating without solar panels. It does not take into account electricity for hot water, appliances + lighting etc. which would be added on if people were living in the house.

This €395 could be reduced to one 1/3 if a heat pump was used to heat the house, see the heating systems section here.

The Passive house certification:

All our houses can be certified to the passive house standard and some of our houses have been. However, due to the extra cost to do this (~2500 Euros) most of our customers choose not to.

The plaque below sits inside a Nordica, a certified Passive house in Ireland which can be seen pictured to the right.

Passive house Wall plaque Certification Ireland

Our in house architect since 2006 is Peter Lohr, who is a passive house designer/architect and energy consultant, registered with the Chamber of Architects in Munich, Germany. He has carried out the calculations on our constructions necessary for the certification by the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt.

Peter can bring houses to the official passive certification like the one below if the customer so wishes.

Certified passive house in Ireland
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