In the English-speaking world, it can easily be argued that Ireland and New York are Passive House Examples for the rest of the Anglophone World to follow. It’s not hard to see how the cold winters of Ireland and the old buildings of NYC would benefit from Passive House Institute (PHI)-certified new-builds and EnerPHit-certified retrofits. Since knowledge-sharing is one of the best ways to grow a new industry, it’s never a bad idea to stay up-to-date regarding the Passive House advancements of our English-speaking neighbors from across the pond.
New York Passive House (NYPH) recently found out that the Irish County of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown just started requiring all new houses built within the county from January 2016 and onward to meet the Passive House criteria. This county is located immediately to the southeast of Dublin. According to the article in Image which alerted NYPH about this new development, “Certified passive houses are still fairly few and far between in Ireland, but that may be about to change. Following in the footsteps of Brussels, from this month forward all new houses within Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown will be required to meet passive-house standards, signifying once and for all the shift of green building practices in Ireland from fashionable to fundamental.”
The article goes on to explain that the United Nation’s (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommended passive housing as one of the core climate change mitigation solutions for buildings. For more information about this decision, read “How About This For a New Year Resolution: Build an Eco-Friendly Home in 2016“, published in Image on January 8, 2016.
