YDB Blog

Young Design Build specialise in providing energy efficient passive house design & build

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Passive House Operational Costs:

November: Hot Water and Electricity: €9.87 (53.69KWH)

One year: attached image

Building fabric:

Timber Frame with pumped cellulose, Gutex insulation to the outside of the frame and Thermohemp to the inside of the frame.

Attic Space with pumped cellulose.

Passive House Premium Maxi windows and doors by Pazen Ireland.

Space Heating & Hot Water:

Nilan Compact P with a backup 2Kw geothermal module combined with a Wikosun Solar Panel installation.

Treated Floor Area: 167m2

Links:

www.nilanireland.ie

www.pazen.eu + @pazenireland

www.ecologicalbuildingsystems.com + @ecologicalbuild

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Passive House Design for the Holy Rosary Primary School Building in Ballycragh, Tallaght featured on Pat Kenny’s RTE 1 show (02/03/2009). Young Design Build was engaged to provide a Passive House permanent building solution rather than the low insulated prefabricated alternative

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Young Design Build receiving Passive House Cert at #ecobuild

Peter Warm presenting a Passive House Certificate to both Stephen Young and Henry Young of Young Design Build for a home in Co.Kerry Ireland at the PassivHaus Trust stand. Well done to all involved!

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New Better Energy Homes Scheme Grant which will come into effect when the scheme reopens on December 8th 2011, at 10.00 am

Revised grant amounts for all wall insulation types and Building Energy Rating (BER)

Internal and external wall insulation grants will no longer be one single amount, but rather be based upon the house type.

Previously internal wall insulation was grant aided for €2500.00 and external wall insulation was grant aided for €4000.00

Grants for attic insulation and all heating system upgrades including solar remain unchanged.

Measure Type

Grant Amount

(effective

8th Dec, 2011)

Attic Insulation

€200

Cavity Wall Insulation – All house types

€250

Internal Wall Insulation (Dry-lining)

Apartment (any) OR Mid-terrace House

€900

Semi-detached OR End of Terrace

€1,350

Detached House

€1,800

External Wall Insulation

Apartment (any) OR  Mid-terrace House

€1,800

Semi-detached OR End of Terrace

€2,700

Detached House

€3,600

Heating System Upgrades

Heating Controls with Boiler (Oil or Gas) Upgrade

€560

Heating Controls Upgrade Only

€400

Solar Heating

€800

Building Energy Rating (BER)

€50

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Home Energy Upgrade outside Dunshaughlin Co. Meath

We recently completed a home energy upgrade outside Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath with the following improvements.

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Kal-Fire Heat Pure Wood Burning Fireplace Installation

Young Design Build spent a day recently in Durrus Co. Cork installing a Kal-Fire Heat Pure 85 wood burning fireplace (4-13Kw). Below are staged photographs taken throughout the day. The fireplace opening was pre-constructed in blockwork to suit the Heat Pure 85, but can also be constructed in timber frame to detail, which can eliminate the requirement for foundations and reduce thermal bridging of the raising blockwork through the floor slab. After insulating between the outer blockwork wall and the Heat Pure 85, metal studding was fitted to support a high performance, non-combustible fire protection board ready to be plastered. This board provides up to 240 minutes fire protection. It was a long day but what a view! For more information or obtain a quotation refer to: http://www.youngdesignbuild.ie

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External Wall Insulation Systems Details: Soffit

There are some important details and choices such as to the Soffit when external insulation is the selected upgrade or new build solution for a home or building. The Soffit when not included as a consideration when externally insulating may not affect your SEAI grant, but it will certainly affect your homes energy efficiency.  www.youngdesignbuild.ie

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Points to consider when upgrading your home

Everyone is being bombarded these days with which type of renewable will make the most dramatic effect to the energy efficiency of your home. Everyone loves solar panels (but which type), some like wind turbines, photovoltaic solar panels, and then there is all the different types of heat pumps as well as pellet burners, boilers etc.

Elements. The building fabric, solid or raised access floor – insulated? External wall insulated? Attic or roof insulation? Boiler type and heating controls? Using an immersion to heat your water during summer time or all year round? Existing windows; are they single, double or treble glazed or even Passive House Institute Certified Window Systems. http://www.pazen.eu/

A professional home energy assessment would help determine the best course of action to take in bringing your existing home up to today’s building standards or to even aim for a Certified Passive House Retrofit.

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Thermal Image of Internal Insulation

Below is a Thermal Image of an External Wall with Internal Insulation applied, you can clearly see that the adjoining wall is not insulated. Within the Rectangle a temp difference of 6 degrees is visible.

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Thermal Image of Internal Insulation Showing Fixing Points

Below is a Thermal Image of an External Wall with Internal Insulation applied, you can clearly see the fixings. Points 4 and 5 show the locations of the fixings with a temp difference of 3 degrees in comparison to the insulated wall. This highlights the probable use of fixings without a thermal break. Plastic shelves are usually used to create the thermal separation between the external cold wall and internal wall insulation.

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Natures alternative to Thermal Imaging

These are some photos using a camera phone at night time (February 2010) showing ineffectual injected/pumped insulation to an existing cavity wall.

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External Wall Insulation Systems Details: The Window Cill

There are some important details and choices to be made when external insulation is the selected upgrade or new build solution for a home or building. I shall cover some of the important details which have an effect on both cost and efficiency. The Window Cill is one such detail.  www.youngdesignbuild.ie

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Air Tightness Testing - What is it and how does it reduce heating costs?

Everyone has heard of Air Tightness Testing; what is it and how would it help make your home more energy efficient?

Firstly it is used to determine how air tight your home is; How do you find that out?

Under the right climatic conditions air tightness testing involves blowing air into and out of your home using a blower door fan while recording the how quickly the air leaks into and out of your home. If the result is poor and the house is suffering from air leakage what can you do? While the door fan is blowing air into and out of the house a smoke candle or thermal imaging camera is used to find the locations of air leakage which are recorded to be remedied afterwards.

The positive effects of locating and sealing these points of air leakage is that drafts within the building will be reduced creating greater comfort within the house; but also all that air which has been expensively heated by gas or oil doesn’t just escape leaving you to wonder why the house never gets warm yet the heating is always on.

This measure can sometimes be the most cost effective method of creating a warmer home without lots of additional expense. Is it used for existing or new houses? It can be used on both. Within a new home it is requirement within the building regulations to have a test conducted. It is easier to do this prior to installing plasterboards when the house is built in timber frame.

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Heating for a Passive House

The whole aspect of heating a Passive House can be confusing given the more familiar use of open fire places in the homes we were brought up in. 

http://www.kal-fire.nl/heatpure/languages/EN/animations/default.asp

If a fireplace like this is of interest to you for your home but are still not sure you are more than welcome to call into my home to see it in use (Dec to Jan it was in use this past winter).

More information

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Cost of External Insulation?

As registered SEAI installers of external insulation we get calls and emails asking for a quick quote per meter squared. It is a little more difficult than that as you have so many elements to consider when externally insulating.

Firstly; what is the existing wall construction? Hollow core blockwork, cavity wall, rubble stone wall etc. You may wrongly assume that it is the same system for each of these walls but you have to consider that SEAI sets a target u-value of 0.27 W/m²K to be achieved when they provide home energy grants of up to €3600.

Everyone is looking at only achieving the target u-value set by SEAI, but this only bring it up to current building regulation standards; which are becoming outdated now in low energy houses or passive houses which look towards a u-value of 0.15 W/m²K. This may not cost a lot more as it is only the depth of insulation and length of fixing which increases and render system will not differ, giving you an extremely efficient home upgrade.

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Carton Demesne Co.Kildare

We recently completed some Building Energy Ratings and this is one of the houses in Carton Demesne Co. Kildare which achieved a B3 Building Energy Rating recently. Nice scheme of houses designed by Murray O’Laoire Architects.

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Target U-value of 0.27 W/m²K not achieved with Injected Insulation

Injected (or Pumped) Grey Bead insulation into a Cavity Wall will not achieve the

Target U-value of 0.27 W/m²K as set by SEAI for grant aided upgrades.

Element type: Wall - Masonry - full cavity fill: injected

Calculation Method: I.S. EN ISO 6946

Filled Cavity Wall

Layer     d (mm)     l layer     l bridge   Fraction   R layer     R bridge   Description

                                                                                0.130                     Rsi

    1          13      0.180                           0.072             Plaster (lightweight)

    2          100          1.130                                       0.088                     Concrete block (dense)

    3          100          0.032                                       3.125                     Cavity fill Grey Bead

    4          100          1.210                                       0.083                     Concrete block (dense) exposed

    5            10          1.000                                       0.010                     Render (cement, sand)

                                                                                0.040                     Rse

                323 mm (total wall thickness)                                  3.548

Total resistance:   Upper limit: 3.548   Lower limit: 3.548   Average: 3.548  m²K/W

U-value (uncorrected)      0.282

  U-value corrections

Wall ties in layer 3:  2.50 per m²,  80.0 mm² cross-section,  l = 17.0,  DU = 0.020

Total DU                                          0.020

U-value (corrected)          0.302

U-value (rounded)          0.30  W/m²K