Home retrofits may need to be re-done in ten years, Oireachtas committee hears
News and Events
- SBFE research fellow Xiaohui Lin receives the MSCA DOROTHY COFUND award
- Upskill with UCD’s engineering micro-credentials
- Minister O’Donovan announces funding boost for early career researchers
- Recent Lab visit by UCD Engineering & Architecture to Sheffield University Diamond Centre
- UCD Stormwater Runoff Research featured in Nicola Haines Team
- Madeleine Lowery among UCD Researchers recognised in SFI Frontiers for the Future Awards
- UCD’s LaNua Medical Wins Big Ideas Award at Enterprise Ireland’s Start-Up Day 2024
- Robotics Competition
- Congratulations to All the Winners of this years NovaUCD Awards
- Irish National Doctoral Research Cohort on Floating Offshore Wind Dynamic Cables is formed
- UCD and Northeastern University extend and deepen long-standing partnership with five collaborative research projects
- EPA announces €14.3M in new research funding
- Arup Scholarship Awards 2024
- UCD names new Vice-President for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
- Project promoting safe staffing in the healthcare system wins UCD Research Impact Competition
- VOICE Project Launches to Shape Tomorrow's Sustainability
- Archives
- 2023 News Archive
- 2022 News Archive
- Arup Scholarship Presentation 2022
- UCD wins Higher Education Partnership of the Year Award at the Asia Matters Business Awards
- Dr Amiya Pandit wins the Thomas Mitchell Medal
- Prestigious award for UCD team tackling stillbirth prevention
- Major milestone on Ireland’s journey into space
- RIBA Stirling Prize 2022
- University College Dublin Engineering Spin-out Shortlisted for Ireland Leg of the 2022 KPMG Global Tech Innovator Competition
- Irish Government invests in 47 projects to engage and inspire the public about STEM
- Irish-led international education project to grow understanding of the bioeconomy in society
- €16m energy system research partnership to decarbonise energy sector
- UCD spin-out PlasmaBound completes €2.35m funding round
- Home retrofits may need to be re-done in ten years, Oireachtas committee hears
- Unprecedented success for UCD in ERC Advanced Grant 2021 competition
- Visiting Professor announcement
- Research to Literally Get Under the Skin of Things
- Six UCD researchers awarded SFI Industry RD&I Fellowships
- University College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast to Strengthen Collaboration
- UCD Engineers Among NovaUCD’s 2022 Innovation Awardees
- New Approaches may Uncover How the Brain Forms Decisions
- Serendipity Swings Doors of Opportunity Open Wide for Nanobubble Generator Developers
- Making Building on Sand a Realistic Option
- €9M joint investment for US-Ireland R&D Programme
- New Approaches to Plasma Therapy may Improve Medical Implant Outcomes
- Assessing Flood Risk Awareness Contributes to Environmental Policy Formation
- International Women's Day
- Supporting Climate Action Through Tree Planting recognised in UCD Research Impact Competition
- Helping People Understand and Mitigate the Spread of Aerosol-Born Infections
- Research that Directly Addresses the Climate Crisis
- Research teams chosen to find disruptive ideas for Irish Defence Forces
- Pan-European 'supergrid' could cut 32% from energy costs, says new UCD study
- Gas Hydrates – a Potential New Fuel Source or a Cause of Mass Extinctions
- Springer publishes book to mark retirement of Emeritus Professor Mohamed Al-Rubeai
- Shining the Food Safety Spotlight on Viral Contamination in Food
- Empowering People to Address the Problems of Climate Change
- AgTechUCD Announces Winners of Inaugural Accelerator Programme for AgTech and FoodTech Start-ups
- 2021 News Archive
- 2020 News Archive
- 2019 News Archive
- 2018 News Archive
- 2017 News Archive
- 2016 News Archive
- Building the State
- A Centenary Celebration
Home retrofits may need to be re-done in ten years, Oireachtas committee hears
Thursday, 5 May, 2022
![Oliver Kinnane appearing before Oireachtas committee](/eacollege/t4media/oliver-kinnane-oireachtas.jpg)
Ireland's homeowners could be retrofitting their retrofits in ten years' time unless measures are taken to up-skill the construction sector, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Some "A-rated homes are performing at C-levels" according to Dr Oliver Kinnane, from the UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, who raised serious concerns about the quality of work and materials being used to retrofit homes in Ireland to help reduce the nation's emissions.
“[N]ecessary knowledge and skills are lacking across the design and construction industry,” he told the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. “Through projects we have undertaken for the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) we have identified a performance gap between house retrofits... In some cases, A-rated homes are performing at C levels.
“Approximately 50% of fabrics are not meeting design U-values and heat pumps are underperforming, often due to improper installation. It is important we get retrofit right to avoid retrofitting the retrofit in ten years' time.”
He added: “The reality is we are already retrofitting the retrofits. There is lots of anecdotal evidence and lots of actual evidence that a lot of retrofitting was done inappropriately. That has caused problems, especially with traditional construction, with heavy moisture content within envelopes.”
The UCD academic told the Oireachtas committee often materials being used to retrofit buildings were vapour-impermeable, leading to moisture getting trapped and allowing for the growth of moulds and mildews, creating bad air quality and creating poor health conditions for people.
“We are seeing a lot of that already and it is generally due to a lack of knowledge across the industry and a lack of training for a long time, which we are trying to correct now,” said Dr Kinnane.
“We really need to train the installers ahead of installation because dealing with different buildings of different construction types is not something every contractor has in their understanding. That is what they need to be trained in before they implement installations, otherwise we will end up pulling those retrofits apart again.”
Dr Kinnane also raised concerns about the Government's plan to build 400,000 homes under Housing for All, saying the construction “will come with a high embodied-carbon bill”.
“If we build 400,000 homes, there will be an embodied carbon cost of somewhere between 4 megatonnes and 6 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent, based on the current carbon intensity of construction.”
However, he said a move to less carbon-intensive models and a shift from predominantly masonry to timber construction could reduce this carbon bill quite considerably.
“We are constructing many new buildings but we are also demolishing buildings to make way for replacement buildings. Young buildings, built only 30 to 40 years ago, are being torn down all over the city to be replaced by buildings of much greater floor area and materials of high embodied carbon. The service life of buildings is constantly decreasing. This is unsustainable. We need to save the buildings we have and retrofit first,” he added.
By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations