Larch and Lime passivhauses

Larch house entrance

Although not self built, the two passivhauses at Ebbw Vale may be very relevant to many self builders. Built in 2010 as show houses mainly for the attention of housing associations, they are attractive and innovative while being relatively modest. The 3 bed Larch House is clad with a locally sourced [...]

Kirk Park

Aberfeldy, October 2009

This is a timber frame house of 76 sq,m. built in 2001. In terms of heating it benefits from its double storey[for the purposes of part B (fire) of the Approved Documents to the Building Regulations] this means a. any gallery[for the purposes of part B of the Approved Documents] [...]

Timber

January ’13

Advantages of timber

Constructing with FSCForest Stewardship Council (who accredit timber) timber (or another accreditation organisation such as PEFCProgramme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. See their web site) is potentially one of the greenest ways of building for several reasons.

Timber itself captures and locks up CO² as it grows and keeps [...]

Bandodle house

October 2009

On the Hill of Bandodle, Aberdeenshire, stands a beautiful timber frame house designed by architect Genevieve Jones for her family. Incorporating high levels of insulation (in the form of 350mm of shoddy obtained from Elgin woolen mill) and mainly locally sourced materials, Larch, Douglas fir and Caithness slate, the house also has [...]

Andy’s house

October ’09

Locally grown timber

Situated in the Scottish Highlands, this nearly completed timber house is composed of three hexagonal areas plus a sun room which extends segmentally out of one of the hexagon sides. The framework is of local Douglas fir and the rain screenthis is a (usually thin) outer cladding on [...]

Chewton Mendip

A very interesting terrace of three houses, on a curved road junction, has recently been completed in this Somerset village.

Some of the main features of the design are:

Very high insulation levels provided by insulating concrete forms (ICF) with added exterior face insulation Structural insulated panel (SIP) roofs Eco-slab ground floors and upper [...]

Self Build Central

Self build eco houses in the Field of Dreams, Findhorn FoundationThe Findhorn Foundation is a large community near Inverness. There is a strong emphasis on sustainable building and living.

Over the last decade or so the green building movement in the UK has gone from being fringe to mainstream.

Architects, builders and suppliers are [...]

Earth Heart

 

Earth Heart is a community of 22 people in 8 homes based on a large converted farm in Derbyshire set up in 1998 around home education. Although not initially concerned with eco-build, they have embraced the concept thoroughly during their upgrading of an old farm house and several outbuildings into dwellings.

There [...]

Building Materials

Smile Plastics recycle plastics into beautiful high quality sheet materials. Here’s an example of bottle recycling

Sustainability of building materials

This can have several slightly different meanings which are to do with:

Whether the material is actually running out or very rare (e.g. Cuban Mahogany) Whether the embodied energythe total amount of energy it [...]

Alterations & Fashion

‘Energy use’ is usually associated with how much energy is used to construct a new building. However, this is only part of the story. Most buildings get altered and repaired and redecorated a considerable number of times during their lifetime and taken to an extreme, some houses are constantly having ‘makeovers’. This can vastly [...]

Green Design

October 2011

Background

If you are thinking of building a green building then it pays to be aware of where this whole process is going

Eco-house design is a fairly recent development which started getting off the ground in the UK during the mid 1990s.

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Although you will probably end up using [...]

Findhorn Foundation

October 2009

The Findhorn FoundationThe Findhorn Foundation is a large community near Inverness. There is a strong emphasis on sustainable building and living. near Fores in the North East of Scotland has a couple of interesting areas of eco-housing and a whole approach to living lightly on the earth including 750kW of electrical energy from [...]