Ireland's building regulations are to be amended sooner than expected to ensure that new housing meets much higher insulation standards, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, announced here yesterday.
Following a tour of innovative housing schemes on the outskirts of The Hague, Mr Dempsey said he was sure the Irish construction industry could make new houses much more energy efficient by using higher levels of insulation.
Under Ireland's national climate strategy, published on November 1st, it was envisaged that the relevant section of the building regulations would be amended on a phased basis in 2002 and 2005.
However, following a report from the Building Regulations Advisory Body, the Minister said it should be possible to make "this great leap forward" in a single step, though no date had yet been fixed.
Roof insulation thickness would increase from 150mm to 250mm, conventional wall insulation from 60mm to 120mm, timber-framed or concrete hollow block construction from 75mm to 150mm and ground-floor slabs from 40mm to 90mm.
"Depending on the nature of the final advice I get from the BRAB, this may be deliverable in 2002," Mr Dempsey said. An earlier revision of the building code's insulation standards in 1997 had resulted in a 10 per cent reduction in energy used for central heating, he said. But because of Ireland's Kyoto Protocol commitments, this had to be increased.
Noting that about 20 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions are attributable to energy consumed by buildings, he said a "further and radical tightening up of thermal performance/insulation requirements for buildings is required".
With around 50,000 new houses being built every year to meet an estimated requirement of up to half-a-million by 2010, he said the obvious area to start implementing higher standards was housing.
