Passive house bucks construction trend
Posted by in Uncategorized on March 5th, 2009
With 8 houses and offices presently going through Passive House certification Viking House is bucking the trend in the Construction Industry by doubling its output for each of the last 3 consecutive years. Viking House have 5 crews on the road and have begun producing Closed Panel Timber Frame houses in their off site manufacturing facility located in Tipperary, which has commenced producing wall panels and external insulation solutions for the 12 new houses and 6 retrofits which will be completed this year. Despite the turmoil in the financial system, savvy investors and home builders are seeing investment in Passive Timber Frame and lightweight block buildings as the most secure investment with best returns available.
Viking house offers build solutions in AAC Block, Timber frame and Poroton. The company is nearing completion of a flagship mixed use scheme in Deans Grange in south Dublin, built to Passive Standard. Managing Director Seamus O’Loughlin describes the development as the first mixed use development in Ireland to be built to this standard. Combining apartments and medical facilities in one block built entirely in Timber frame and a second block built with Externally Insulated Poroton which will serve as a veterinary surgery.
Passive standard is increasingly seen as the most cost effective means of achieving a comfortable indoor environment. Heating bills are 10% of the cost of heating a 2005 build regs house and all rooms are supplied with a constant stream of HRV delivered fresh warm air.
There is a perception that a Passive house is an elusive goal, expensive, overly complicated, unsuited to the standard housebuilder and a barrier to good architecture. The concept is deceptively simple, a well insulated building designed to make use of free heat gains from the sun through solar orientation and cutting ventilation heat losses by using heat recovery ventilation. Building Passive will save a significant amount of money over the life of a mortgage. A €200,000 mortgage will cost €400k over its 35 year lifespan. At the end of that period, savings accrued from energy efficiency measures if put on deposit, would be worth €200k, roughly equivalent to the original mortgage value. Passive houses can be completed for an additional investment cost of 5% above 2007 regs standard build and 10% above 2005 regs standard build. Passive is about more than bolting on renewable technologies, it looks at the building as a system of inter dependant components managing heat loss, moisture and ventilation to create a good indoor environment.
A Passive house with its space heating demand of 15kw/m2/Annum has only half the energy requirement of an A1 rated house. Quality control is particularly onerous for the contractor who needs to develop skills in building detailing which the norm in Austria and Scandinavia. Viking house’s philosopy is to use building physics to create airtight buildings with less than half an airchange per hour @50Kp with virtually zero thermal bridging.
The Viking House Website www.viking-house.ie gets on average 270 visits per day with 65% from the USA and many from Japan and China. The Team now includes an Architect, an Engineer and provides consultation to Professionals, developers, local authorities and home builders. A €250,000 investment in Austrian timber frame machinery, means that the wall and roof panels can be accurately manufactured, delivered and erected to form a raintight enclosure within 2 weeks. Viking House’s fully breathable wall fabric achieves a u-value of 1.2-1.3 w/m2. The wall uses rendered woodfibre board or aqua panel to provide a durable robust water resistant construction guaranteed for 40 years.
Viking house has recently completed 4 retrofits of existing buildings using External Insulation, Blown Cellulose and Airtightness measures. We are accredited under the Home Energy Saving Scheme and offer a competitive price before grants are considered.
Call us today to discuss your project or just to talk about low impact/ low energy buildings. We live green buildings and Passive houses and run courses and organize trip abroad to learn more.