Building Ireland’s most eco-friendly house?

Gloomtastic!

Hello Boardsies,

As a long-term resident of this place, I have shared my passions with other, equally passionate people on a variety of topics, mainly Food and Business.

But I also have plenty of other passions that I haven’t bothered posting about. One of those is the world we live in today, what a total mess we’ve made of things and how, if we don’t want to end up like the dinosaurs, we need to change.

I believe passionately that we have to stop consuming. The relentless buy, discard, replace that our governments pursue in the name of GDP growth is what’s making things worse for all living things on the planet.

All governments want GDP growth. Growth means more jobs, more money in everyone’s’ pockets, more consumption. They get to keep their very privileged positions.

Thankfully, on the horizon is Artificial Intelligence - AI. In 5-10 years time, 80% of us are going to be unemployed. The only people working will be those who want to.

The rest of us will be living on a form of Basic Universal Income where we get paid for doing nothing - like we did during COVID lockdowns. Bring it on!

So I’m planning for our retirement. I want to build a home for my wife and I where we can potter through our dotage years, happy that we have tried to leave the planet in a better place for our two kids and if they’re lucky, their kids too.

We currently live on the Northside of Dublin in a great 1920’s semi. I have just bought a very, very special site in the centre of Ireland - Athlone. It’s currently about a sixth of an acre I believe but there options to buy adjoining sites.

The site is predominantly a walled garden that belonged to a nearby castle, now in total ruins. It has two protected structures inside the walls - an Ice House and a folly. The folly is listed as a Summer House in the historical records. In the records, the garden is listed as a forested garden and sure enough, there are trees everywhere.

Just outside the walled garden is a row of old estate workers’ cottages and buildings. But the only access to these buildings is past the two Protected Structures and all the trees so no heavy machinery will be allowed. There were lots and lots of viewings of this site but in the end, I was the only bidder.

I now want to build somewhere that is, at least, comprised of 99% organic or recycled materials - Ireland’s most eco-friendly house. Can it be done? We can but try.

Let the story begin………..

Leg End Reject

Posting to bookmark the thread, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you accomplish.

Best of luck with it all!

Straw bale ticks most of your boxes. It works as insulation and thermal mass so once you have it up to temp it tends to stay there. Straw can be sourced locally, winter wheat is best and a good straw supplier should be able to specify extra dense bales. Render with a high lime content render and the walls remain breathable which reduces the need for forced ventilation to a minimum.

SIP is a good candidate for roofing with a raised ridge final finish in galvanized steel.

If you pay attention to site drainage, DPC in your raiser walls and a good wide overhang this should make a high-performance durable home.

We built an extension based on similar principles around 20years ago, the straw is as good as the day built. We have extensive south facing glazing and we barely have to heat from Feb to Oct, if the rest of the house was as well specified we would barely need to heat at all. I would always design in MHRV to ensure the highest internal air quality.

For a slightly less natural approach at higher cost I would build all in SIP. Passive house performance is easy with SIP.

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121445168#Comment_121445168

I would normally agree with you but the problem we have is space. There are 200 year-old walls (if not older) already in situ that I’m going to try and reuse. If we were to line the walls with straw bales, there would be no room for anything else.

We’re one week into what I think will be up to a two year process to get planning consent. Lots of things will go on the table.

Del2005

Have you talked to the local planning department to see what you can build? If it's a protected structure you may have to rebuild to original specs and you might not be able to build any other buildings on the site. I'd be seeing what is allowed before doing anything else.

Gloomtastic!

The ice house is prefect, we won’t be touching it.

The folly has no roof and the walls are a bit rough. I’ve tried searching through the Architectural Heritage Archive online but can’t find any drawings of the summer house. There may be drawings if I go in and visit them. They will dictate how we move forward. But if you are going to buy a protected structure in ruins, with a limited budget, then a one-roomed folly is as good as you’re going to get.

looksee

Making 'eco-friendly' and 'old stone walls with minimal or no foundations' work together is the challenge.

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121445471#Comment_121445471

Yep. I’m looking at hempcrete. Hempcrete is amazing. 100% natural and if you want to knock it down, crumble it up and use it as fertiliser.

My architect may have other ideas. We’ll see.

Damp control will be your primary issue when trying to reuse the old walls. There will be no DPC and if you try to isolate the internal structure from the old walls that is where the damp will develop and it will be bad for your health if not perfectly handled.

From experience old structures are a liability which takes twice as long to deal with than knocking and starting from scratch. Anyone who has attempted to turn a derelict into a livable home will tell you the same thing. Eco-friendly is the last thing the result is likely to be.

Hempcrete is great but you still have to deal with damp issues and it is fiercely expensive to get adequate U values.

Unless you were forced by planning to use the old walls I would be knocking.

KevRossi

Best of luck with it. I was one of those who looked at the site, but the time frame to get started was a bit too far out. Hope it works out for you.

Thread followed.

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121445544#Comment_121445544

I hear you and it’s been worrying me too. I have up to two years to try and sort them but I’m loathe to tear down walls that are perfectly sound structurally.

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121445617#Comment_121445617

I visited twice. Once with Mrs G! and the second time with a Grade 3 Conservation Architect. That was worth every cent.

I’m planning on retiring from one of my businesses in a couple of years so there’s no rush.

suvigirl

I listened to a short interview on the Moncreiff show awhile back, with a Stonemason named Frank McCormack. All about maintaining older homes etc, He was talking about old houses and how they don't necessarily work with today's methods.

'tips for maintaining your older home'

Might be of some interest to you.

looksee

Why not leave the old walls as 'follies' in the garden and build adjacent to them. I would be way more satisfactory than to try and incorporate dodgy foundations and floor into a new building. Or turn them into outhouses/sheds, a project that you could probably tackle yourself if you are any way practical.

I have an old cottage as part of my house and while the 25 year old house is warm and comfortable with minimal heating, the cottage is impossibly cold and somewhat damp - you can't leave anything up against the walls. It stands on rocks rather than foundations and a concrete slab has been poured (before my time) into what was a suspended floor. I suspect it would have been better left alone. It would need full time heating to keep it any way habitable, though I did live in it temporarily for a few months in the autumn, and I did have a stove going full time, which is hardly eco friendly.

HildaOgdenx

No advice whatsoever to offer but looking forward to seeing this develop, having seen it begin on the AH thread.

Best of luck.

Furze99

Might be a good reason that you were the only bidder! But if you've plenty of funds from businesses that depended on growth, you'll have plenty of resources to put into it!! There's a Facebook group called Natural Buildings Ireland which has people doing similar things, would be worth looking up.

blackbox

Going by your own sentiment:

"I believe passionately that we have to stop consuming. The relentless buy, discard, replace that our governments pursue in the name of GDP growth is what’s making things worse for all living things on the planet."

...wouldn't the most environmentally friendly solution be to stay in your current house?

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121446398#Comment_121446398

If I buy the adjacent site, that could be feasible. Thanks.

Thargor

Best of luck with it OP just posting to subscribe. I hope you do build a full standalone eco home instead of trying to refurbish ancient stone walls though.

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121446698#Comment_121446698

As I said in the OP, access to the site with heavy machinery will be nigh on impossible. I’m not planning on using any heavy machinery.

I’ve a limited retirement pad fund, that’s it.

Thanks for the FB referral. Will check it out.

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121446741#Comment_121446741

We have two now adult kids that are showing no inclination to move out of our current home. Us moving out and leaving them to it makes perfect sense.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121446877#Comment_121446877

you can subscribe to threads without posting - if on a full fat browser click on the icon that looks like a pennant on its side, to the right of the thread title:

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121446877#Comment_121446877

Will have a serious talk with the architect about them but I just plan on using them as supports.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447328#Comment_121447328

You would have to rebuild them to ensure they could take the load.

gk5000

Hello OP, Interesting project. Post up a link to the advertisement if possible so can get a better idea - and am interested in this.

BTW - Industrial Revolution and Information/Computer Revolution have came and went - changed the nature of employment - but did not eliminate it for most of us - any more than AI shall do.

I have an old 2 foot thick rubble stone house, no foundations - that I'm planning to renovate. They just scrapped back the topsoil, spread a layer of burnt lime as DPC and built - and then then clay floors originally.

I think engineers don't understand old houses as they can't measure and their calculations don't work. Same for most builders. I'd be wary of conservation architects but you may have deep pockets and are more into the concept whereas I am mainly focused on the cost - with a bit of sentiment. Lime plaster and breathabilty seems to be the fad - back to the way it was - but they forget that would have included a roaring open fire - providing both heat and ventilation; and everybody would have congregated around that fire.

My house is elevated and close to rock so I don't think damp should be an issue, though may add french drains - leave the old walls the way they are, so some cement plastered, and some old lime plaster stripped back - and then just dry line with about 50 mm of modern insulation and a small gap. I think / hope that if the ground around the base is dry then the walls should be dry.

I'm also planning a to dig down about a foot on the inside for ceiling height, and to add an inset concrete retainer wall of about 100mm under the walls to compensate. This is the part I'm worried about for the damp - must check separately about waterproof concrete. I'm planning to do this myself in - cut through the rock/mud in alternate meter sections.

You might check with the eco village in CloughJordan as they have real life experience of living in eco houses, and I think there's at least one mud (straw/mud) house there.

gk5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447953#Comment_121447953

Is the case equally that they may be perfectly capable of taking the load, except for the fact that nobody will certify it?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058325358/building-ireland-s-most-eco-friendly-house

What are you allowed do with the site from a PP perspective?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448223#Comment_121448223

Entrusting 100s of thousands to an uncertified foundation seems foolish to me.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121446741#Comment_121446741

That option would only be valid if there was never any increasing demand for housing stock. As long as there is a demand for housing, building better will always be more environmentally friendly than the next person not building as environmentally friendly.

Op, there was a good "grand designs" episode where they used the old stone walls of a walled garden as their starting point. It might give you some tips and ideas

gk5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448239#Comment_121448239

Maybe, but remember that the entirety of any old house is uncertified. My understanding is that the only way to get old walls certified is to do a full under pin - which is very expensive but also likely destructive.

My house is built close to rock (sometimes on, sometimes on shale type rock; broken rock/clay and clay). To underpin would need to shatter the rock so as to pour concrete - just so someone could certify; and the existing rock with no foundation is stronger and more stable than drilling/breaking which would destabilise the walls.

You see the conundrum - Kill it to cure it....

So please correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like the issue is the competence of the engineering profession and regulatory authorities.

Gloomtastic!

Thanks all,

I don’t want to spend lots of money on this project but I firmly believe there’s a solution to every problem. you just need to find it.

So if any posters here who want to point out problems can you also please post a solution too? Don’t worry how insane it may sound. It’s a positive and this project will be all about positivity

We’ve no idea on planning yet. But the Walled Garden will probably remain a garden - exactly as it was intended. It will be up to the Westmeath Conservation Officer.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448359#Comment_121448359

The issue as you describe it is consistency of the founds. It's not good enough to say that one area will be stable enough and coherent enough to avoid issues. If the whole foundation doesn't behave as one stable base then you will get significant subsidence cracks as you load it. The house may have been stable for centuries with its existing load but you have absolutely no way of knowing if a different and uneven load will behave the same.

I would argue that the engineer is justified in his approach of insisting on underpinning before certification. Unless you have a single slab of granite under the whole of your house it's a crap shoot and I would argue that shale would be the worst of the lot for potential differential settlement.

Old buildings such as yours are very forgiving and light on the land, but once you start adding to them in any way you are just praying for good luck. I know of a friend in a similar situation to you who bought a house with an extension on the back - the extension is pulling away from the house and creating inch wide gaps at the join. I myself built an extension onto the back of our house and the change in ground loading has created hairline cracks in the massed concrete main building.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448384#Comment_121448384

Consider building the whole thing on piles and above the existing walls.

It cannot be said enough - it's really really difficult to get old walls to perform in an energy efficient way. Very few people who live in old houses would recommend the experience to others.

looksee

Gloomtastic! this is a fascinating project that everyone will have an opinion on. There are bound to be observations and discussion that are not directly relevant to you actual situation, you may glean some ideas but don't feel you have to take them all on board 😁

looksee

Meanwhile, the suggestion that you leave the stone walls in situ and build beside them - I do feel that they would tell the story of the site better like that than incorporated into, and probably lost in, a house.

And of course, the planners may have a view on this. Your architect should know how to approach it but I strongly recommend working up a lot of arty/archi stuff about 'preserving the integrity of the gardens by juxtaposing the dwelling with the historical remnants thus carrying forward etc' you get the idea, but it does go down well, kind of blind them with waffle. Demonstrate that you have a deep appreciation of the history and value of the place. Quote your research, but don't quote me, that was the first rubbish example I came up with 😁

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448450#Comment_121448450

Like this idea. A lot! Thank you.

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448621#Comment_121448621

My kind of thinking. Love it. 😋

Leg End Reject

I actually think it would be lovely to still be able to see the old walls, what a unique feature to have alongside a new eco-friendly house. Preserving the past while building for the future.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448384#Comment_121448384

So you’re not gonna use the existing walls?

So why not build a passive house+?

Will you get planning for that though- that’s the issue.

looksee

I went and looked at these modular/passive houses https://www.scanhome.ie/ a few years ago (around 2018) and they are certainly interesting.

My main issue with them was that the show house, which was doubling as an office, while attractive to look at and certainly seemed to be good quality, seemed to be 'dead' feeling with the recycled air. I am an 'open windows' person and am very suspicious of totally passive houses, its just my opinion but I reckon in a decade or so there will be a conclusion that they are not the best idea.

Also the building of the house depended on some amazing timing - you get foundations/water treatment etc dug, on a specific date they come and put up the building, then you get it tiled (I think, bit hazy at this stage) and they came back and did installation of interior, then you get painting etc done. It all depended on 'split second' timing of everyone so if you found yourself with one of the 'sorry missus can't get there Monday, it will be the end of next week' builders it could end up messy and expensive. There was a lot not included in the price they gave.

sydthebeat

There is absolutely no reason you cannot open windows in a passive house.

Plus, the air is not recycled. It's always fresh air that is coming in

looksee

I am aware that windows can be opened, I am simply saying that the atmosphere in the house seemed 'dead' to me. It is possible that I was wrong, but while I found the house visually attractive and well built, I did not feel comfortable in it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121449364#Comment_121449364

It may have been a phychological response to the uncannily dead acoustics of these buildings. Triple glazing cuts out an amazing amount of external noise, and combined with high levels of insulation they have a dead sound to them.

looksee

That's interesting, its a possibility.

tphase

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121449364#Comment_121449364

as @sydthebeat said, it's always fresh air coming in but if it's all going through a heat exchanger then it can be very dry and that may be what you're feeling. My BIL built a super insulated, super airtight passive house and all of the incoming air goes through the heat exchanger. The air is very dry and the bedroom windows are left open at night when we visit (he hates that!). If I were building a similar house, I'd mix a proportion of 'cold' fresh air in the incoming air to raise the humidity a bit. Otherwise, I think he did a fine job. He has a stove which gives him hot water in the winter if there's not enough solar energy to provide it, otherwise there's no heating system. The fridge, oven, dishwasher etc provide more than enough heat to keep the house comfortable.

Gloomtastic!

While I’m all for passive house. I’m not a fan of same as houses. Whole estates with identical houses, such a lazy way to build. I want unique.

I haven’t mentioned it yet but I’m very keen on 3D printing my house. It’s perfect for houses with access issues and perfect for hempcrete. It’s quick, it’s cheap and you can design one-off houses no problem.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121449364#Comment_121449364

That dead sense you get is what an incredibly well built eco friendly house feels like.

tphase

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121449770#Comment_121449770

Well, with your site you won't have to worry about the neighbouring houses being the same😀. But I get where you're coming from - even conventional houses are being built to an architectural fashion which a decade ago looked fresh and innovative but now looks bog standard

As for 3D printing, wouldn't a timber frame design equally do what you want?

As I mentioned before, a SIP house can be erected in a few days. Designed and built in a factory to whatever spec you want. Kingspan have a company they work with that build extensions in about 10days - ready to move into.

If I were building from scratch the only two options I would consider are straw bale and SIP.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121449889#Comment_121449889

SIP= ? Insulated Panels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121449898#Comment_121449898

Yes structural Insulated Panels.

The system involves two sheets of OSB sandwiching a layer of insulation, the better ones use urethane insulation. Rated to be 4x as strong as timber frame. Airtight by design so no need for taping. Finish outside with cement board or cladding and plasterboard inside. Incredible unsupported roof spans are possible.

In Ireland the materials are expensive but the savings in labour more than compensate.