Dr. Caroline Engel Purcell:

I will add a few words about the BER. I mentioned a study a little while ago about the U-value testing of traditional wall materials, such as masonry. The objective of that study is to inform the national calculation methodology that is used for the BER. This would make it more representative of the different types of walls that one might find in traditional buildings. That may result in a U-value for different typical Irish limestone, and materials like that. It may be adjustable to the thickness of the wall. That research has just started. I am afraid it will be a little while before we have that information. However, that is one of the objectives of the study. Another objective of the study is to do laboratory testing on all of the material samples we collect, so that we have better data to use in the hygrothermal modelling tools. This is because models are only as good as the data that are used. At present, as far as I know, there are not any Irish material data sets in the existing modelling tools. Having the thermal conductivity, the vapour diffusion resistance factors and those kinds of material aspects factored into those models will only make them more accurate.