Jeff Colley is the editor of Passive House Plus. He won the Green Leader award at the 2010 Green Awards for his advocacy work on the inclusion of energy ratings in property advertising, and a proposal to finance energy upgrades via utility bills.
He established Construct Ireland (for a sustainable future), Ireland's pioneering sustainable building magazine, in 2003. The magazine evolved into Passive House Plus in late 2012, the world's first English language magazine focused on passive house, as well as other aspects of sustainable building.
He is also a founder of Éasca, (the Environmental and Sustainable Construction Association) , an organisation set up to develop and promote a membership of approved companies offering genuinely sustainable solutions.
He writes a regular column for the Sunday Times, and has authored, co-authored and contributed to articles on sustainable building for numerous newspapers including the Irish Times, The Sunday Business Post, the Irish Examiner & the Sunday Tribune.
Bavarian building first in world to earn passive house premium cert
One of the world’s most sustainable buildings stands in Bavaria: as the first of its kind, a mixed residential and commercial project in the town of Kaufbeuren has met the criteria for passive house premium certification. With a heating demand of only 8 kWh/m²yr, it is uniquely energy efficient. At the same time, a 250 sqm photovoltaic system on the roof produces renewable energy.
Dún Laoghaire votes emphatically for passive house standard
Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council has voted emphatically to make the passive house standard mandatory for new buildings. At a meeting on Tuesday night, councillors voted by 26 votes to 13 in support of putting the clause in the local authority’s development plan for 2016 to 2022.
The CIF object to passive house, but do they have a clue what it is?
The head of the Construction Industry Federation has warned against local authorities mandating the passive house standard, while not appearing to understand what passive houses are. Interviewed on RTE 1's Today with Seán O'Rourke yesterday, Construction Industry Federation director general Tom Parlon mistakently claimed that passive houses require rainwater harvesting systems and solar photovoltaic systems "and a lot of different expensive extras".
Department of the Environment objects to higher housing standards
The Department of the Environment has written to Dublin’s local authorities warning against adopting higher quality housing standards – and threatened to overrule Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown’s proposal to mandate the passive house standard – in correspondence obtained by Passive House Plus magazine.
Dublin goes passive: city set to make passive house mandatory
Dublin City Council has passed a motion so that new buildings in the city must be constructed to the passive house standard. The measure was agreed at a council meeting on Tuesday to discuss the drafting of the new Dublin City Development Plan for 2016-2022.
Key questions on the implications of making passive house mandatory
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council’s proposal that all new buildings in the county must be passive houses or nearly zero energy buildings (NZEBs) is currently out to public consultation till 11 May. But what is this proposal all about, and what are the implications?
Is the Dept of the Environment wilfully ignoring whether its own regulations work?
Setting ambitious building regulations, as Ireland has arguably done with 2011 Part L, is all well and good. But is the industry actually achieving compliance with the regulations? And if so (or if not), how are those buildings actually performing, in terms of the likes of energy usage and indoor air quality? I put some questions to the Dept of the Environment press office just after Christmas, and the response leaves a lot to be desired.
Picking up the ball again
Apologies for the dead air on the still nascent Inside Track recently. A trip to Australia followed by a home and office move have proven more than a little distracting, but prepare for more updates imminently, starting with a couple of pertinent pieces from the recent past.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown puts mandatory passive house target into draft county development plan
We've been working quietly away on this for a while - and I have been co-opted onto the board of the Passive House Association of Ireland, principally to work on this - but I'm excited to say that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council passed a motion this evening to make the passive house standard (or equivalent) mandatory for all new buildings in the county from 2016 onwards. UK clients, please don't feel like we're neglecting you. We are pottering away on a proposal for your market too, though the formidable obstacle that is the right honourable Eric Pickles means we have to tackle public buildings only, thanks to an entirely retrograde conclusion of his housing standards review.
Irish Green building council looking for feedback on sustainable homes rating tool
The Irish Green Building Council is developing its Home Quality Rating tool - a sort of Irish version of the Code for Sustainable Homes, albeit with measures in place to hopefully ensure that it's less about box ticking and more about producing buildings which actually function properly - and is seeking to engage discretely with the industry for feedback.