Closing in the Passive House - Putting on the Roof

Kilbroney Timber Frame have made great progress in the last 2 weeks. The roof is now going on, we've decided to go for a warm roof, which is unlike most Irish roofs (where the insulation is on the flat of the room ceiling) in having the insulation on the slope at rafter level. In addition the build is being made windtight ( as evidenced by all the tape) using Siga products and the roof will have a sarking board ( 9mm panelvent, a vapour diffuse wood fibre sheet) to decrease wind infiltration into the structure. Warm roofs, wind tightness and sarking board are very common techniques in Europe and Scotland but are not common in Ireland yet - I strongly suspect they will as they dramatically improve building thermal performance quite cheaply.We have used Panelvent in preference to other products due to its wind resistance and ability to release any condensation that occur ( i.e. breathability) rather than trapping it like some products like OSB do. in addition the frame is covered in breather memebrane on the outside and is windtight using siga products.

Also we're looking at the plumbing, heating and bathrooms to finalise the requirementd and get equipment and sanitaryware ordered. The windows arrive in mid February at which stage the building will be weather tight & internal works will start at pace. We even started putting in some plants last week as this is prime planting season.

Also work will be starting on running services - gas, power, comms, foul, water, stormwater - over the next few weeks now that much of the heavy vehicle movement is over and hence damage to newly buried services will hopefully be limited. Will be interesting to see how busy the services providers are at the moment & how much they will try to charge!