SUPER ENERGY EFFICIENT The house’s total running costs come to around £2 a day
one or two degrees a day.” He’s less impressed with the noise factor
created by having a double-height, open-plan living space and concrete and wooden floors with no carpeting. This is further exacerbated by the 10 mm between gap door heads and frames required in Passive House design. Sound travels easily throughout most of the building, despite the inclusion of Rockwool between ground and first floor. “I’m working on the problem before grandchildren want to stay for thrash metal sleepovers!” he smiles. The Green Building Store designed, supplied and commissioned the MVHR system, a PAUL Novus 300 MVHR unit, for the project, and Pete installed the system himself including insulating the ductwork pipes. He says that the ducting “went together like a dream,” and he’s pleased that the system is very quiet.
This would be demanding enough for a younger man, but Pete took it mostly in his stride. “The main challenges were around not getting daunted by the size of the undertaking, which involved design, procurement, scheduling and all the detail of project management, including project managing myself,” he says. “There was also the concern that my back might give out –although I did lose at least 30 mm in height from lugging heavy materials around! In the event I found that building was probably less damaging to the back than sitting at a desk.” In a further move to help the planet, Pete plans to plant another half acre of trees for
april/may 2020
“I did most of the work but had invaluable help from Meheri, an Eritrean refugee who I trained up as the air tightness champion”
carbon sequestration. He is justly proud of his achievement: “I can hold my head up at meetings of the local action group against climate change” –but even prouder of the fact that he is passing on his skills to the next generation of his family. “My wife and I brought up our children to be immensely practical and I am proud to say that my four-year-old grandson, Fonzy, could use a handsaw very effectively when he was two!” It’s perhaps not an approach to be recommended for every self-build project, but certainly Pete’s story should be an education in itself.
www.sbhonline.co.uk 49
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