Ringcurran Rise Deep NZEB Retrofit 

2002 Bungalow Deep Retrofit 

You don't really think that we would be retrofitting buildings built this century, but this 20-year-old bungalow had a very poor energy performance and the client wanted to insulate themselves against future energy costs. At the same time they wanted to open up a dormer to capture the view of James Fort in Kinsale. Three projections were designed with flanked sides to avoid over looking into neighbouring gardens and to create a solar shade during the summer to prevent overheating.

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In this project we externally insulated, with cavity insulation, Attic insulation, triple glazed windows, very good airtightness with windows taped both to the outside and the inside. All floor junctions to plastered walls were taped for airtightness. We had an existing underfloor heating within the concrete floor so we retained this connecting it to a new 12 kW heat pump. Mechanical ventilation heat recovery and was used to manage air circulation and further improve the efficiency of the building. A new garage was built with a view to putting solar panels on the roof to feed into the heat pump demand. We expect this house to meet an A rating in the near future.

We continue to look at buildings which are of different ages or typologies to feed into our guidebook on deep retrofit.