Come home to
something different
Net-zero homes that power themselves, pay you back, and permanently restore native Irish woodland. This is what living here feels like.
Arriving home
No brick pillars. No iron gates. A native hedgerow of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, and holly frames the entrance. The development doesn't announce itself with walls. It emerges from planted landscape.
You pull into the Car Barn — timber-framed with a solar canopy overhead. Your car plugs into its 7.4kW charger. From here, you walk. The interior of the community is car-free.
A gravel path takes you past a Miyawaki pocket forest — dense native oak, birch, rowan, and hazel, about the size of a tennis court. Head-high within three years. Genuine young woodland by five. The path opens onto the Village Green — not a manicured lawn, but a wildflower meadow with mown paths, fruit trees, raised herb beds, and a community composting station screened by native planting.
The first thing most visitors notice is the quiet. No through-traffic. No cars idling. The only sounds inside the community are conversation, children, wind, and birds.
Meanwhile, in a typical new estate
Brick entrance pillars. Metal gates. You park on the street or a small tarmac driveway. The front garden is a strip of grass behind a low wall. The rear garden backs onto another row of houses. Traffic audible from the main road.
Inside, the house is BER A2 — good by Irish standards. Air-source heat pump, 1.2kWp of solar to meet minimum building regulations. No battery, no EV charger, no water treatment, no MVHR. A small green area with ornamental trees. Management fees of €600–900 for roads and lighting.
It's a perfectly decent home. Hundreds of thousands of Irish families live happily in homes like this. The question is what "home" means to you — and what it costs over time.
Life with the seasons
A NWC home changes with the year. The community grows, blooms, fruits, and rests. Choose a season.
A Winter Tuesday
You wake at 7am. The house is 20°C — it has been all night. The ground-source heat pump drew a small amount from the battery overnight. Your energy bill: effectively zero. You shower in softened water — no limescale, no residue. Through the mud room, past the pocket forest bare but beautiful in its winter architecture, a robin singing from the top of a hazel. The path to the Village Green is gently lit. At the Woodland Bank, the winter solstice gathering is this weekend — fire pit, storytelling, mulled cider.
Warmth without effort
The floor is warm. The walls are warm. No cold spots, no draughts. Triple-glazed Passivhaus windows and an insulation envelope that holds heat so effectively the ground-source heat pump barely runs. Continuous filtered fresh air from the MVHR — pollen, dust, and PM2.5 removed before they enter your home.
For allergy sufferers, this is a significant quality-of-life difference. For everyone, it's the absence of something you didn't know was bothering you.
Where outside meets in
The mud room is a dedicated space between the Irish weather and your living space. Built-in bench, boot storage, coat hooks, a durable floor that can handle anything the countryside throws at it.
Wet wellies and muddy jackets stay here. The living area stays clean. Behind the mud room, the utility/plant room houses the battery inverter, MVHR, and hot water cylinder — systems you rarely think about because they just work.
The economics — transparent
NWC fees look higher on paper. The total cost of ownership tells a different story. Here's the full comparison for a 3-bedroom home — no cherry-picking, no hidden costs.
| NWC Home | Standard A2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase price | €495,000 | €475,000 |
| Annual mortgage (30yr)Green rate ~3.4% vs ~4.2% | €25,740 | €27,720 |
| Annual energy costs | ~€0 net | ~€2,500 |
| Management feesNWC includes woodland + energy | €2,220 | €600–900 |
| Water treatment savings | €620–1,110 | €0 |
| Total annual cost | ~€27,010 | ~€30,820 |
| Annual saving | €3,810/yr | — |
Calculate your savings
Adjust the sliders to reflect your current energy costs and how long you plan to own your home.
Included vs. standard — and the cost to retrofit later
Total retrofit equivalent: €48,000–70,000. All included in a NWC home at purchase. The native woodland access cannot be retrofitted at any price.
We're building the first NeighbourWood community in Ireland's eastern commuter belt. Register your interest to follow the journey as it takes shape.
Your woodland, your legacy
Every NWC home is linked by permanent covenant to the Woodland Bank — native Irish woodland held in perpetuity by the NeighbourWood Stewardship Trust. This is not a park, not a plantation. It's a restoration of the ecosystem that once covered Ireland and now covers less than 2%.
Each home is allocated a specific section — approximately 0.1 hectares. You can visit your section, watch it mature over years, personalise it within guidelines. A family tree. A named bench. A memorial planting.
Guided walks, family nature days, woodland work parties
Bluebell walks, dawn chorus, owl prowls, winter solstice
Woodland festival, photo competition, community AGM
Live webcam, wildlife alerts, carbon dashboard, event booking
The Woodland Bank is typically 5–20 km from the residential site. Your daily nature experience comes from the on-site pocket forests, Village Green, and native landscaping. The deep woodland — wildlife, trails, the long-term restoration story — requires a short drive or organised visit. We want you to understand this clearly.
What grows with you
Settlement
Pocket forests grow rapidly — chest-high in 18 months. The Village Green wildflower meadow establishes. Energy systems confirm savings projections.
Emergence
Pocket forests are visually established woodland. Birds nesting. Village Green mature — fruit trees producing, herb beds thriving. Bluebells appear in the Woodland Bank.
Community
The community has its own traditions. Wildlife surveys show increasing diversity. The landscape is unmistakably different from any other estate.
Maturity
Woodland Bank is genuine native woodland. Environmental credits generate revenue for the Home Affordability Fund. Your Passivhaus home requires minimal maintenance.
Legacy
Oak trees establishing the canopy that will define the site for centuries. Your woodland — the one you watched grow from saplings — will outlive you. It's permanent. It's real.
Honest fit
We'd rather you make an informed choice than a pressured one.
NWC is a strong fit if you…
NWC may not be for you if you…
If this is the kind of home you've been looking for
We'd like to hear from you. No obligation, no sales pressure. Just a conversation about what home could mean.