We’ve had a set of stairs in our designs that are central to the hallway. They go up halfway, you turn a corner and go back up the other half to the landing. We’ve decided to scrap the idea in favour of a straight set of stairs that splits left and right at the top. The implications are: 1) we lose a cupboard at the top of the stairs. 2) We end up with a bigger landing. 3) We end up with more hall space. 4) We gain a big cupboard under the stairs. 5) We lose direct access to the big living room from the kitchen (you now have to walk around the stairs). It’s a neater design, probably cheaper, and we like it. Phew.
Stairs In Their Eyes
July 7, 2010A plant room???
July 6, 2010Good grief – we weren’t expecting there to be so much kit that we were going to need to dedicate an entire room to the pumps, tanks and pipes that make up the Ground Source Heat Pump system. Pompidou Centre watch out!!!
Come and have a go...
GSHP at Highgrove
July 5, 2010According to an article in the Telegraph, Prince Charles has installed cutting-edge equipment to heat rooms, and provide hot water, at his Gloucestershire estate. Old Charlie Boy isn’t necessarily the best ambassador for this sort of technology (or anything else for that matter) as he comes across to many like a bit of a twerp, but he’s on the money in this case and it’s great to see someone who can afford it take these sensible steps and lead by example. It reminds me of Heather Mills when the Lib Dems wheeled her out as their celebrity endorsement. What were they thinking??? I wonder if he’ll be eligible for the government’s renewable heat incentive scheme?
Did you like the low energy heating darling?
Builder’s references
July 5, 2010My wife and I spent a good part of Sunday visiting 2 couples who’d had similar work done to their houses nearby. They were both very generous with their time and were very open about their experiences. It was a very worthwhile process and we’re starting to feel much less like we’re going in blind. They both recommended their builders very highly which is fantastic – it gives us confidence that we’re going to be choosing between good guys.
In both cases, the families had installed hot water solar panels on the roof, and in this hot weather it’s providing more than enough hot water for their houses. It’s just such a shame that we don’t have south-facing roof space. I suppose we could put them on the ground???
Ice Energy Quotes
July 3, 2010I received quotes from Ice Energy yesterday for the heating system. Interesting reading – they put plenty of details in which gives some confidence that they know what they’re doing and that they’ve done it before. They’ve recommended 2 heat pumps for some reason which I hope will become clear when I quiz them. The sums are quite eye-watering and I must admit a bit confusing. They price for the kit (pumps, piping, underfloor heating etc) and another price for installation. It’s not clear whether or not this includes digging the trenches for the ground source pipe work, and there are other pieces of work that they expect your main contractors to undertake.
There appear to be grants available (£3k for two heat pumps) as well as what appear to be generous government payments as part of the Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme (RHI). No doubt there will be schemes to borrow the capital required with government paybacks as your security.
EU renewables targets
July 2, 2010Sweden achieved a 44 percent score for energy production from renewables in 2008, the highest in the EU, according to the Swedish Energy Agency. Biomass, hydro power and wind account for the majority of its clean energy supply. The UK, by comparison achieved 2.3% from renewables (5.5% from green technology, whatever the difference is). Sweden’s target for 2020 is 50% compared with the UK’s 15%. Given our coastline, wind and financial resources (do we still have these???), you’d think the UK could do better.
Finding a quality, reliable builder
July 1, 2010With so many horror stories about cowboy builders, this becomes a rather anxious process. However I’ve followed up on some of the recommendations that I’ve been given and had glowing reviews returned. This is very encouraging and I’m starting to feel a bit better about it. I’m hoping now, that with a good deal of preparation and choosing builders that come highly recommended, we’ll get some guys that are a pleasure to work with.
I read in my magazine a few tips for choosing your builder:
- Get recommendations, follow them up and ideally see the work they’ve done
- Prefer builders that put a sign up outside the property they’re renovating – it suggests they’re proud of their work
- Choose builders that are members of the FMB (federation of master builders)
- Ask your building regulations person at the local council for any tips
- Be wary of choosing the cheapest (particularly if they’re a lot cheaper than the others)
Insulating the walls a bad idea???
June 30, 2010The idea of insulating the walls has exposed a flaw in the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme: the more energy you require to heat your house, the greater your potential returns (assuming you use a renewable heat source such as GSHP). This is counter-productive, as we should be encouraging home-owners to insulate heavily first. For example, say it costs £10k for me to insulate the walls through internal cladding. This reduces the size of the heat pump required, which means I get less payments from the government, over 23 years, possibly losing me £40k in revenue. If my increase in heating costs is £20k because I chose not to insulate, I’d still be financially better off. Of course, it’s not just about the financials, but it’s what drives most people’s behaviour, so if the government want to see a reduction in energy consumption, they’d do well to revise their ideas.
Hellifield Peel and their GSHP
June 29, 2010A brilliant episode of Grand Designs showed a family bring a 12th century castle back to life. At times it seems impossible and I had to hide behind the sofa. The result however is fabulous and a testament to what is possible. One part of the show that had always left me wondering was the Ground Source Heat Pump – how effective had it been for them? Installed throughout, the system was to be used to provide the hot water and heating (there was no gas and they wanted to avoid oil, just like us). I was delighted then to find a video of Francis the owner talk about his experiences of living through 2 winters with the GSHP. Running a bed and breakfast there’s clearly an important demand for decent heating and hot water, and he claimed the GSHP did an admirable job providing these. You can see the video here: http://www.iceenergy.co.uk/hellifield-peel—c4-grand-designs-winner-_238/. This is just the kind of comfort I need before finalizing the heating system…
Hellifield castle uses a GSHP
Grand Designs helps set expectations
June 22, 2010My wife and I like to watch Grand Designs to remind ourselves that the project will be very stressful, that it will overrun in time and money and that we should steer clear of trying to manage the project ourselves. This sets our expectations, and hopefully will make for a more enjoyable project.
kevin mccloud - our messenger
Ground Source Heat Pump in an old house
June 18, 2010So here’s the dilemma. The house is old, badly insulated and without many options to improve it. Will a GSHP with under-floor heating be sufficient to warm the house in a cold winter? Or should we design in an auxiliary system – a traditional central heating system? There’s no gas in the area, so it would need to be oil presumably which I know is very expensive and rather out of sync with our goal of making an old house as environmentally friendly as possible.
We’d rather not have radiators all over the place, and like the idea of relying solely on GSHP (with the pump powered by our solar panels) but are we going to find ourselves freezing cold? We’ll have a few wood-buring stoves downstairs, so these rooms should be OK. But what about upstairs? My dad’s going to have a go at some sums. Anyone know how we should approach this?
See the oil tank? Alas, it's empty 
Solar Panel Grants – will Lib-Con Goverment support this?
May 27, 2010I’ve not heard much about their plans, but I sure hope the new government introduce loads of incentives for people to purchase their green technologies. It’ll support green industries, creating much needed jobs and help reduce our CO2 emissions. Don’t let us down Clegg and Cameron – give us solar panel grants. Give us Ground Source Heat Pump grants. We might even like you then!
Batty
May 20, 2010So it’s the day of planning permission deadline (8 weeks from application), and yesterday SODC decided to raise the issue of bats, long after the end of the consultation period had finished. This is very annoying and bad form on their part. They’ve agreed to extend the period whilst we get a ecologist’s report submitted but it’s really thrown a spanner in the works and will delay things dramatically. Seems they play by the rules when it suits them, and not when it doesn’t.
Pipistrelle Bats
Bat Survey
March 30, 2010Some news come in from the architect – another of his clients is renovating a property on the banks of the Thames, and the planning application has just been put on hold, 3 weeks after submission. The Conservation Officer said that the house was a good candidate for accommodating bats and that an ecological survey was required to ascertain the extent of the problem (if any). So now we’re on the look out for bats – hopefully we don’t find anything and the matter goes away. If we find bats, we’ll need to plan mitigating steps to sufficiently reduce the impact on our little furry friends whilst the building works take place.
Planning Permission
March 25, 2010Our application for planning permission was submitted yesterday, so fingers crossed, everything will go well. As far as I understand, we don’t need to raise our green initiatives at this stage because they have no bearing on the matter. I think it’s a case of crossing fingers and toes that things go through successfully, so we can move ahead and take this house out of dereliction.
Eco House Example
March 5, 2010In the Guardian magazine there’s an interesting article “A little power house” which describes a home in Denmark that creates more energy than it uses. That’s fantastic, and something that I like to think we’ll be able to achieve in time. It has twice as many windows as a typical house of its size, each of which are triple-glazed with super-insulated frames. These large windows provide 50% of the home’s warmth in the Winter. This is encouraging – we have lots of large south-facing windows in our designs for the extension. Better look into prices of triple glazing… It also has lights that turn off when no motion is sensed, and computerised display showing how much energy and hot water the house is producing and consuming. They reckon the 5,500kW the solar cells produce a year is nearly double the family’s requirements. And the ventilation system takes heat from the stale air to warm fresh filtered air which is fed into the house. A few more ideas in here to add to the list…
Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)
February 5, 2010A friend’s dad is building a eco friendly house in Farnborough. He has the advantage of doing it from scratch and so he’s got the place extremely well insulated (first rule of eco house building it seems). Anyway, he introduced me to the Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme that the government is proposing. Due to launch in April 2011 this guarantees you healthy returns on any investment into renewable heat sources like Ground Source Heat Pumps. Let’s hope the upcoming general election doesn’t result in any changes – this is a great opportunity for the UK to make major in-roads to its CO2 emissions targets.
Measured Survey
December 14, 2009We’re getting a measured survey done. One things that’s come to light is that the walls are solid brick. With no cavity, insulation is going to be a big problem. I’ve heard mixed views on the effectiveness of cladding inside, worst case scenario is you get unpleasant pockets of stale cold air. The roof we can insulate massively, which is clearly very important. When I was at school I learned that heat rises. I presume it still does.
Sued By Trespassers
December 10, 2009I’ve just put up a load of signs to say “Danger: Keep Out”. I’ve read that you can be sued if someone breaks into your house and hurts themselves. Can’t say I didn’t warn them.
Eco versus aesthetics
December 5, 2009We’ve got a bit of a dilemma. Whilst not listed, the building is in a conservation area, so we need to be careful about what we do. We’re keen that it remains sympathetic to the environment anyway of course, but we also want it to be as eco friendly as possible. Solar panels on the roofs probably won’t fit! We’re thinking about a separate array of panels on the ground, or possibly on the garage roof. I’ve been looking for solar tiles – they’re coming on but the companies that supply them are very few and very far between. I think a couple of years will be enough for the market demand to see these come to fruition.
