Niamh O'Donovan: 'Normal people' make passive house their home
Niamh O'Donovan with her partner Mark Cliffe at their passive home in Co Waterford.
Niamh O'Donovan has no heating bills. The passive home that she designed and built with her partner Mark Cliffe in Co Waterford is heated by the equivalent of a hairdryer.
"We have a compact ventilation system and we use solar gain (literally the heat that comes in through windows) as a heat source," says Niamh.
"There is a small heat pump in the ventilation system if it's a really cold day. It takes two kilowatts, the same as your hairdryer to run it."
"That's all that's heating the house. A half-hour of winter sun heats a passive house for a week," she adds.
The same compact ventilation system has a cooling element that kicks in during a heatwave, such as last summer.
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Their passive home is guaranteed to stay at around 20 degrees Celsius all year round.
But what exactly is a passive house by definition and is it expensive to do?
"A passive house means whole-house comfort all year round, the house can't get too hot or too cold," says Niamh. "It's about designing more cleverly."
Niamh, a youth justice worker with a passion for design, and Mark, an engineer, broke ground on their passive home in January 2020.
Other things they did to ensure "whole-house comfort" was insulating the foundations.
"You're not going to need them, it's gone through a real attention-to-detail design," says Niamh, about how passive houses are designed.
But what's the cost?
She estimates that it is about eight to 10% more expensive from the outset but it's about the long-term savings.
"We've basically no heating bills which is important for rising heating bills. We are future-proofing, we don't want to build a dinosaur.
"We are doing our bit for the environment, every little bit helps, but we're just normal people," explains Niamh.
In order to build the home, Mark did the passive house course, which anyone can do with the Passive House Institute and this is where Niamh believes government has a role to play when it comes to incentivising more energy efficient homes.
"Ireland is a very suitable climate for a passive house, it neither gets too hot or too cold here and that eight to 10% at the start will pay itself back in a few years time," says Niamh.
"There are currently zero grants to go with passive builds, so if we can offer grants to homeowners so they don't think it costs extra and then provide far more education for trades about passive house building," suggests Niamh.
It was in this vacuum of information that she set up an Instagram account @passive_build to be an "advocate" for passive house building in Ireland.
Her account quickly gained a huge following and now has nearly 33,000 followers.
As a result she has started her own design consultancy — House Goals — to basically help people make the best use of their space be it a room, an area in a room, or an entire layout of a home.
But what mindset shift does it take to build a passive house, for people who are concerned about climate change, energy efficiency and rising heating builds?
"Once people realise that the equivalent of a hairdryer can heat a house they get it," says Niamh.
- See housegoals.ie
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