SUSTAINABLE HOMES:PROPERTY COMPANY Durkan Residential is aiming to build future phases of homes in its Creston and Silken Park schemes to an A rating on the BER (Building Energy Rating) scale.

The company has also set up a subsidiary called Durkan Ecofix which will help people across Ireland to raise the energy efficiency of their homes.

“Sustainable energy is the way of the future and we saw a niche in the market,” says Anna Durkan of Durkan Residential. “When the SEI (Sustainable Energy Ireland) grants became available we thought it would be a good opportunity to set up the new company.”

Durkan Ecofix – whose technical director is the highly regarded eco-architect Jay Stuart, from Canada – works as a one-stop shop in which Durkan assesses a person’s home, recommends what needs to be done, applies for the grants for clients and then gets the workers in to do the job. “They get a menu and decide how much they want to spend,” says Anna.

The company has estimated that the measures – which will include high insulation, energy efficient boilers, air tightness and controlled ventilation – will save residents of a typical three-bedroom house up to €750 a year compared to a C-rated house: and that equates to a lifetime saving of around €15,000, says Durkan.

“It is quite easy to build a much more energy efficient home,” says Stuart, “using more insulation, making it airtight and dealing with ventilation (either mechanically or passively). There are very good boilers around on the market now with a 92 per cent efficiency. Modern technology has moved on a huge amount and prices have come down significantly.”

When retrofitting, it comes down to client needs and the way the home was built. For instance, when retrofitting people tend to put insulation completely on the outside or inside of a building, but Stuart says some types of property work better with a mix, with perhaps insulation on the inside wall at the front and outside walls elsewhere.