still snowing & next steps

close up of the rising walls after a damp proof course applied, the frame will be going up shortly.

Also have been meeting with potential M&E contractors ( mechanical & electrical i.e. plumbing, heating, air, power, phone, data....) regarding the heating system, underfloor, solar etc...They hope to put a lot of this plant out in the garage ( actually in the roof space) which would be a great step forward. Word of warning though, these systems have to be designed by an engineer and correctly installed - secondly, in domestic situations fancy control systems , such as were ubiqutous during the celtic tiger rarely get used - lesson: make it simple to control & reliable. There is no point getting first class equipment if its not design to fit into a system for your particular house or is installed ( & commissioned) by rookies

Passive House Coming out of the Ground! : Rising walls going in onto Slab

Rising walls going in on the slab; radon layer, timber frame & insulation are next. Started putting plants down on site too - its the time of year to plant those daffodils & we had received a large consignment of them.

Part of the approach to building to passive house levels of low energy use is to agree the construction details and mateial in advance. This is particularly true where walls meet or there are unusual junctions which need to be well planned. Then on site, the qualty of workmanship  - which must tally with the agreed construction details - is vital.

Youtube Series on designing & building a passive house - UK

An excellent 12 part series on the process of going about designing & buildings a certified passive house (PH). Called the Denby Dale house in the UK, this is the UKs first PH.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GreenBuildingStore

Windows & Slab

Foundations going in now , the weather has been great thankfully & windows being ordered today - more information on that to follow. The process of selecting a window & supplier has been a very interesting one. Ideally you would select  from  great & certified product from a supplier with a long history in Ireland & a long guarantee...but this is the ideal! We believe with Pazen ( www.pazen.eu) we have a great Irish agent, a good product at a fair price... nonetheless the price of windows for a certified passive house are astonishing

PHPP - what is this?

Called the PHPP, this is a detailed MS excel package with about 20 tabs whichs allows you / one to model up the energy performance using a bottom up approach by providing in the technical details for each building component e.g. local weather, window, glazing, shading , foundations, doors etc... its a very detailed package and has been proven by the PHI (Passive Haus Institute) over many years to be a great design tool. For someone who knows their way around it, there is 1-2 days of  input work. It is relatively easy to use and even takes into account summer shading from trees, impact of local terrain  etc...much of which simpler tools choose to ignore.

They key thing in using the PHPP or any such is that experience and good data inputs result in good and reliable data outputs. In our case we had the house modelled at the planning permission stage & tender stage , using standard Passive House design criteria ( air tightness, good quality windows, site shading& site aspect/building orientation)  and some design assumptions to  figure out (1) could the house be build to this standard and (2) to understand what the design & construction criteria for the actual build would be i.e. indicative U values for wall, floors, roof. Its definitely too late once the house is built or construction has started to come up with the criteria!

More over , this is the basic validation tool that the PHI require you  to  submit for certification when the building is complete.

SEAI Website - buying the PHPP:
http://www.phyxhost.ie/dev/reioshop/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=36&osCsid=aaec8343a9a9d04c455069143fc7df03

Wiki article on PassivHaus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passivhaus

Construction Basics : Site Boundaries , foundations & progress

Well we've been in the lull period between the finishing of the site works and the house frame going up. The last few wet weeks have not had any impact as the main much shifting was already done.

Foundation will be going in shortly & will include about 400mm of insulation to get the U value down below 0.1. There are a number of proprietry foundation systems out there but the increased cost over other solutions is €10-20k; some of these sytems has potential issues with spec'ing up a high degree of radon protection ( in excess of building regulation requirements) which is a personal requirement

As regards site boundaries, advice is to get a good series of site boundary photos - in detail, including looking into ditches and hedges, before you touch anything on site. This type of information can made a real difference should any dispute arise during the build or later

Mmore digging

Well... there has been a lot more digging onsite, retaining wall & materials have now been purchased. Setting out the sites took a lot longer than expected, was connect to where is the centre of a hedge etc... but that is nearly resolved.

Progress in mid sept - muck & walls!

Well the last few weeks have been all about digging & shifting muck. We have to put in a retaining wall & decided against straight concrete for aesthetic & cost reasons. In the end we chose a segmented retaining wall i.e. an engineered concrete block, that looks vaguely like cut stone - photos to follow once its put up next week. Final setting out of the road & services will happen shortly & the site is really starting to take shape.

Suppliers!

Maybe I've worked as a professional for too long & am used to meeting time commitments I make myself, but the amount of suppliers who make commitments & fail to deliver consistently is amazing

Is it irish people not wanting to say no , me being too pushy or many of the  people who work in sales & construction. I would understand if they were looking to pay me money & were being tardy....but its the opposite way around; I'm looking to buy from them. Putting pride aside, I need the best product / price mix.

Lesson learnt...just call them & hassle. Once this is build these petty niggles will be long forgotten...but its still a little wearing

Photos of site works - how do i post more photos?

What is a Passivhaus?

Well, there are so many experts out there, many of the selling something that the conclusion is that its a superinsulated house, very airtight with its own airhandling system. There are purists who say that no heating systems is required, it should be made of straw, etc........None of this is true and usually just reflects the opinions of early adopters of this approach in Ireland.  Doctors differ...... patients die, come to mind.

Unlike a normal house, the build is regularly inspected, calculations carried out , has triple glazing, usually is timberframe but can be block build, and is pressure tested before completion to proove it is airtight

Their is a publication from an irish government bosy which shows what this means in practice ( at a high level anyway) which has a good summary of how such a building stacks up against a house that meets Irish Building Regulations
www.seai.ie/Renewables/Renewable...for.../SEI_Passive_House_A4.pdf

Day 1

Well, the purpose of this blog is to document the construction process we are about to undertake for a certified Passivhaus in Wicklow, Ireland. We'll add in photos, videos, detail issues and hopefully  act as a guide to other trying to do the same thing. Expect that the process will take about a year from today to complete.

We believe that low energy houses such as passive houses (see www.passiv.de) is the future of housing.Here in Ireland we are well behind the curve, to date, in implementing effectively building regs and many design / construction techniques that have become the norm in the rest of Europe. The ubiquitous concrete block and lack of attention to detail during the ' boom' exacerbated this. However given our timing of wanting to build a house now, there is a general lack of both professional and contractor experience in this specialist field- its a work in progress & in a few short years we would hope it will have matured significantly. In the meantime it needs people  to just get started.