Passive home to slash energy costs

A ‘passive house’ might sound like one devoid of the normal domestic hustle and bustle but the only thing absent from the O’Leary family home is a heating system.

No cowboy builders are to blame, however. Tomas and Mairead O’Leary deliberately chose to say no to radiators, fireplaces and oil tanks and let nature - and some nifty design - warm their hearts instead.

There are 7,500 certified passive houses but the house the O’Learys and their three children share at Ballykeppogue near Wicklow town, is the first in Ireland and as the prototype, provides the ABC to passive house building.