One of the key requirements of a PassivHaus or in our case something built to the EnerPHit standard, is air tightness. To achieve the thermal efficiency required, we need to be obsessive about cutting out any air leakage and with it our precious heat. Once you’ve sealed your house up and made it air tight you then need a plan to prevent the air going stale, oh and for making sure the occupants can still breathe.
Continue reading “Balancing Act”
A new year has arrived and a lot has happened over the past 12 months so I thought it was worth recapping the story so far for you loyal followers – yes all 7 of you.
Continue reading “Year 2”
The house project rollercoaster continues with great leaps of progress in some areas (design) while elsewhere we appear at times to be no further forward (amendments to our planning permission). Lockdown 2.0 has at least given us some enforced ‘stay at home’ time which we have put to good use reviewing the huge amounts of detail that is being produced and assembled by the team.
Continue reading “The big book of words”
Lots going on and we are well behind on the blog, blame the Kendal Mountain Film Festival, so there is much to catch up on. Last weekend we spent a productive morning working out how we wanted the kitchen to work and also discovered our secret weapon – Plywood!
Continue reading “Kitchen Musings”
One of the many things we have to work out is how to insulate the ground floor. The Architects Matt and Elly, are helping unpick the mysteries of what you usually take for granted since it’s buried in the ground. It’s all a balance between making sure the building doesn’t sink, cost, achieving un-interrupted insulation, minimal thermal bridges, and it turns out dealing with radioactive gas.
Continue reading “Starting at the bottom”
With the help of the Hydrock engineers, we’re working through options for energy sources for hot water and heating. The fabric first approach of going large on insulation and preventing leaky air flows in the building (no period house draughts) means that we shouldn’t need much in the way of space heating. We will though be wanting a hot shower and so will also need an energy-efficient way of heating the water.
Continue reading “A Harry Potter Box”
So its time to talk money. You’ve all seen the TV and the tricky conversations that start with “so how much will all this cost” and end with some mumbling about savings and how “we’ll work something out”. Obviously our project will be very different and run to budget but as gold taps and a monorail are pricey essentials we do need to give this matter some thought.
Continue reading “The unmentionable”
Thanks to our brilliant removal people Monday went remarkably smoothly and after 20 years we are now back living in the centre of Bath. It’s very exciting to be back with unlimited access to cake shops but even more importantly we can now move ahead with the build stage.
Continue reading “The city is paved with seagulls”
After a few hiccups we have finally exchanged on our house sale so with an equal mixture of sadness and excitement we move out on Monday!
Continue reading “The next chapter”
Things have been rather hectic over the past couple of weeks but not due to the project hence the lack of posts for a wee while. We have instead been flat out selling this house and getting ready to move into a flat while our project progresses. I appreciate this news will be disappointing to you Grand Design watchers and caravan fans out there.
Continue reading “Distractions”
