‘The heat from a toaster will heat the entire house’

Ciaran Ryan and his wife, Mary Hodkinson, were downsizing from their detached house outside Galway city to move into the city when they decided to buy and retrofit a house for their future needs. "All our children were finished in secondary school and we wanted to be in walking distance of everything in the city," says Ryan, who is a self-employed piano tuner.

Priorities for Ryan and Hodkinson were a warm and comfortable house with low or zero energy bills.

So with their architect, Simon McGuinness, they searched for more than a year to find a 1960s house to buy and future proof for 20-30 years.

The semidetached four-bedroom house in Salthill was gutted. “We brought the house right back to the four external walls and rafters,” says McGuinness.

Once fitted with a radon barrier and insulated, a new floor was laid. The chimney was also removed to free up internal space.

Standard temperature

The house was externally insulated, fitted with triple-glazed windows and doors and a heat-recovery ventilation system. A key feature in passive houses, this replaces traditional heating systems by pulling the heat from outgoing air into the incoming air, thus keeping the house at a standard temperature night and day. The water is heated by an electric air source heat pump on the terrace outside.

The house is set at 19 degrees Celsius at all times. “It takes a while to adjust to this and when there are more people in the house, it gets warmer. But if it gets too warm, you simply open a window,” says Ryan.

McGuinness adds, “When a house is retrofitted – like this one – to an A-rated passive house standard, the heat from a toaster is enough to heat the entire house. There is a perception in Ireland that you can’t retrofit to an A rating. This house proves that is completely wrong.”

The retrofitting works cost €136,000. Ryan and Hodkinson received grants from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland towards the insulation costs but not towards the installation of the heat-recovery ventilation system. The bills for the first year space and water heating were €55 and €125 respectively.