The site in Knock-ananna on w hichthese tw enty-tw ohouses are situ atedis interesting fromthe energy d esignview p oint for tw oreasons. Firstly, areally good p oint isthat the site slop es

gently to the sou th w hich m akes it at-tractive for the u tilisation of solar en-ergy, bu t second ly, the site is high in theW icklow hills w hich w ill have a negativeeffect on the am b ient tem p eratu res thatw ill be exp erienced in w inter. Becau se ofthese tw o p oints the d esigner and p roj-ect m anager of this housing schem e forW icklow C ounty C ouncil, Step hen O ’Su lli-van, ap p roached N uTech R enew ables to

carry ou t a fu ll energy analysis of vari-ou s house typ es and construction to en-su re that the houses w ou ld p erform inp ractice as low energy, low C O 2 houses.

In early m eetings w ith M arc D evereu x,senior engineer, housing section in W ick-low County Council and Stephen O ’Sullivan,itw as clear that as part of this project the councilw anted to und erstand the p rincip les ofeffective low energy housing and how itcould be replicated throughout the countyin fu tu re p rojects.

It w as d ecid ed that the p roject should bed ivid ed into three p arts, beginning w iththe design and analysis stage, carried ou tby N uTech R enew ables w ith the help ofM arc D evereu x and Step hen O ’Su llivan.This stage w ou ld be conclu d ed w hen the

houses w ere going ou t to tend er. Thebu ild stage w ould be the next p art, w hereN uTech R enew ables w ou ld be closely in-volved in the bu ild p rocess to ensure thatthe houses and system s w ere m eeting thecriteria as set ou t in the analysis stage.The final p art w ould the m onitoring stagew here N uTech R enew ables w ou ld m oni-tor the energy perform ance of the housesto rep ort on the energy balances and en-su re that the d esign w as functioning cor-rectly.

A p p roval for the p roject to p roceed w asreceived from the D ep artm ent of the En-vironm ent on the basis that p hase one ofthe p roject, w hich involved the first tenhouses, w ould be built and m onitored priorto phase tw o, the last tw elve houses, beingcom p leted .

H IG H & mightyA 3 R A TED SO C IA L H O U SIN G IN TH E W IC KLO W H ILLS

An advocate of sustainable building long before it was fashionable, Bill Quigley of N uTechR enewables has subsequently seen the m ainstream ing of sustainability at first hand, hav-ing input into substantial projects for Leahy Bros, M K N and G ED A C onstruction am ongstothers. In their latest project, N uTech are working with W icklow C ounty C ouncil on a socialhousing schem e with im pressively high energy perform ance targets to m eet, as Q uigley explains.

PHOTOGRAPHY:STEPHEN O’SULLIVAN (WICKLOW COUNTY COUNCIL)