Basically we want to reduce our CO2 emissions, and the government have targeted houses as one of the main problem areas associated with this. As a result they have introduced the changes to part L of the building regulations.
http://www.lcea.ie/Ber.asp
These have to be met by all new house builds
Heating Method
Have thought long and hard about this one, not really into the technical aspects of all the systems. It probably is the wrong point of view to have, but i have lived in our home house for the last seven years the minimum spec of aeroboard, and no insualation in the roof until this year, we have never been cold solid fuel heating cooker. I know its not all about heat and; economy (price and supply of oil) and a greener environment comes into this equation. Have read up about the geothermal, the underfloor heating woodpellet and solar. I am still not convinced about the savings with any of these methods. They say it takes seven years to get your money back as opposed to oil and other fossil fuels.
I think we are going to go with a well insulated building (floors, walls, roofs & Windows) and oil heating, condensing boiler. We might incorporate some solar panels for water heating purposes, and are looking at the possibility of using Heat Recovery ventilation.
This link proved very informative http://www.sei.ie/index.asp?locID=722&docID=-1
Method of Construction
Initial design stages, but you can change your build type after recieving planning as long as you dont alter the asthetics of the build. For us it was always going to be the standard 100mm cavity construction, as we felt this is where we would get the best value from our build as my father is a block layer by trade. We could have went with timber frame, SIPS, ICF and so on. Some of the readers of this may think (possibly including myself) that i am sacraficing my home on the pretense of the final build being cheap! Maybe i am reading too much about all these different forms of construction and i feel inadequte that we are only building a bog standard 4" block 100mm cavity wall with no fancy heating system and no use made of natural resources!
Some good refernce material on the following links:
http://www.dlpks.ie/downloads/PartLBrochure.pdf
http://www.rockwool.ie/graphics/RW-GB-implementation/brochures/Part_L_2006_Interim_Guide.pdf
http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,1652,en.pdf
As for other items that need a bit of thought at this stage we have the kitchen drawn out and planned to allow for services island unit in the middle of the floor and it incorporates a sink, they priced the kitchen also €32K incl appliances.
In brief the items to consider at this stage are,
- The build type Timber Frame/ICF/TimberFrame etc
- Type of insulation
- Type of windows
- Type of heating method
- Type of/use of energy supply
- Services in the house Electrics/plumbing
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