Last week we contributed in a small way to helping Benenden Primary School PTA raise £3,400 towards equipment for the childrens’ use.  We donated to their Auction of Promises a voucher for A Home Energy Audit, entitling the highest bidder to a consultation with Tim to discuss quick and simple improvements to making their home more energy-efficient. Call us if you’d like to know more about this service, or visit benenden-primary-pta.co.uk if you want info about the work of the PTA.

We’ve offered a similar voucher for Silent Auction at the St George’s Church Benenden annual fete. Fingers crossed that the weather remains dry!

Yesterday Tim was one of several parents invited to facilitate a business game for Year 8 parents at Marlborough House School, Hawkhurst. The Junior Bradford Business Game is an enterprise game aimed at developing team-building, creative and participation skills. Teams of 5/6 children form a company and have to create a company name, logo and poster to advertise products. They then have to secure orders from buyers, managing their finances in the process. At the end of the day they make a presentation to a panel who then picks a winner. A great day was had by all! For more info see www.surreysatro.org.

His presentation, entitled ‘Schools That Don’t Cost The Earth’, included a number of startling facts such as how schools in England throw away the equivalent of 185 double-decker buses of waste every day – 78% of which could be recycled.

Praising the improvements already made by the School, Tim explained the vital role students, teachers and parents can play in reducing waste, saving energy and recycling. “As a practice we specialize in ‘energy-saving’ architecture because we believe that is where the future lies. What better place to start spreading the word than in schools?” he said.

Students also heard about renewable energy technologies – solar electricity, solar water heating, wind, ground source heat, air source heat and biomass and how they have been used at Howe Dell Primary, one of the UK’s first ‘eco schools’.

Emma Brown, Chair of the School’s Eco-Committee said: “Tim’s presentation reinforced the fact that our students really can make a difference – here and now.”

To download the full presentation go to ‘Schools That Don’t Cost The Earth’, 14 February 2011

To download the press release go to Press Release – jhd Architects Supports Cranbrook School’s Eco-Drive

Want to comment? Go to www.jhdarchitects.co.uk/architecture-blog

When we design houses in this kind of location, the most important overriding factor is the effect that the building or extension will have on the rural scene. After all it is that rural beauty that we are all keen to preserve.

Many clients are surprised to learn that the overall height and size of a proposed building, and the materials used, can be more important in terms of getting planning than the actual style of the building. We have, for example, obtained planning consent for many contemporary style houses with low-pitched profiles that sit well in the landscape and are possibly less intrusive than their more traditional neighbours.

Another factor is the sustainability of living in the countryside. New-builds in rural areas generate additional traffic, meaning that replacements or adaptations of existing buildings are often viewed more favourably by the planners.

The need to replace or adapt an existing building does generally limit the size of a house, however we have found that using techniques such as low pitch roofs and basements with sunken gardens can create more space without any detrimental effect on the rural landscape.

Overall we find that a well presented planning application is sympathetically received by most planning officers and they see it as an opportunity to approve a well designed building that contributes to the long term architectural heritage of a beautiful landscape.

The key is to design flexible spaces that meet current needs but allow for change as children leave home and everyone gets older. Here are some hints and tips to help you design a ‘home to last a lifetime’.

• Many houses use corridors to provide circulation space, however these are often narrow and become quite wasteful of space if they are widened to accommodate wheelchairs. An alternative is to revert to the way historic homes are often designed where you pass from room to room without using a corridor. This works well for the main living spaces and produces the commonly known “open plan”. It works less well for bedrooms and service rooms, but there is scope for imaginative planning in most parts of a house to keep corridors to a minimum and make movement from one space to another easy.
•  Avoid split level design as this makes circulation for wheelchair users and the less able much more difficult. The stairs need to be ideally straight runs to easily accommodate a future stair lift and think about where potentially you could install a lift in the future.
•  Design in a study/bedroom at ground floor level and form a shower room with toilet at ground floor level generously sized to allow for future disabled use. Is there a route for a ceiling mounted hoist track from a main bedroom to a bathroom?
•  Allow for at least one wide car parking space (3.3m wide) close to the house and make the path from the car parking space to all the house entrances level or gently sloping, with external lighting to help in the dark.
•  Design a covered main entrance to give you space top stop and find keys, set down shopping, etc and make sure there is a low threshold at the entrance door.
•  Indeed all external doors should ideally have low thresholds and low level gazing to make it easy to move from inside to out and see out.
•  All internal doors, including bathrooms should ideally be say 926x2040mm which after fitting the door stops gives you a 900 clear opening width. Use lever handles not knobs as they are much easier to open.
•  Think about space to turn a wheelchair in the hallway and reception rooms.
•  Install switches, sockets and other service outlets between 450 and 1200mm from the floor.
•  Make sure that wherever you can you use low maintenance materials. They could have a long lasting finish or perhaps a natural finish that weathers nicely when left to the elements.
•  Use conduit and ducts for wiring to allow for easy re-wiring as technology changes.
•  Invest in insulation and renewable energy to keep energy bills low (see separate blog)

If a something can be repaired, that is almost certainly the best option as replacement with a new element involves a lot of energy to manufacture, deliver and install. However some items ether cannot be repaired economically or are beyond repair in which case it should be replaced with a new energy efficient version.

Loft insulation

Ideally you should fit at least 8” or 200mm mineral wool or fibreglass insulation, but the more you can fit in the better. One layer is fitted between the ceiling joists and the next layer at right angles. Make sure that the roof ventilation at the eaves is maintained to avoid condensation problems within the roof void.

Cavity wall insulation

You can usually tell if you have a cavity wall because all the brick lengths will be the same. If you have header bricks (half length) at regular intervals then the wall probably does not have a cavity. If you have a cavity, it can be filled with blown fibre insulation by drilling small holes at regular intervals through the mortar joints, which are then made good.

External doors and window

Firstly you need to keep existing windows and external doors properly repaired to make sure that they close properly and avoid unnecessary draughts.

Next time they need decorating, ask the decorator to clean off all the paint build up that stops them opening and closing correctly. You could also fit draught stripping.

It is rare that you will get a decent payback in terms of real energy savings for wholesale window replacement so only do this if the existing windows are beyond repair. If you have to replace them, the energy performance should be as good as possible. You should aim for a U-value of 1.4 for the whole window (that includes the frame and not just the double glazing). Triple glazing is not usually worthwhile in the south of England.

Central Heating

Make sure you have the boiler regularly serviced to make sure it is working as efficiently as possible. If it needs replacing, choose an efficient condensing boiler. Make sure that you have room thermostats or thermostatic radiator valves and that these are correctly set.

Hot Water Cylinder

Make sure that your cylinder is properly insulated with a factory foam or a retro fitted tightly fitting insulating jacket. Make sure it has a thermostat and that the thermostat is set correctly to 55 or 60C. If you need to replace it choose one a factory insulated version with a thermostat and an optional connection for solar water heating panels.

Household Appliances

Always replace with appliances that are A rated for energy efficiency. Also make sure that you use them in the most efficient manner – always as full as possible.

Low Energy Light Bulbs

Your local shop now sells a whole range of low energy replacement lamps that can use to reduce the energy cost of your lighting. When choosing ask for a warm white version with a quick start. However don’t forget that most of these types of lamps are not dimmable.

Low Vat Rates

Some energy saving work qualifies for the lower VAT rate of 5%. Installation of any of the following qualifies:

• Controls for central heating and hot water systems
• Draught insulation (eg around windows and doors)
• Insulation to walls, floors, ceilings, lofts, etc
• Solar panels
• Air-source heat pumps
• Micro combined heat and power units
• Wood-fuelled boilers

The lower rate applies to the installation work as well as the equipment and materials. You’ll also get the lower rate on any necessary extra work that needs to be done as part of the installation; however this doesn’t apply if you’re having them installed as part of a larger project such as a new roof or building an extension.

However you can’t get the lower rate of VAT on all energy saving materials and equipment. The following aren’t covered by the scheme:

• Energy efficient boilers
• Secondary or double glazing
• Low emission glass
• Energy efficient appliances
• Materials and equipment that you buy without having them installed

There is a strong demand for using renewable energy solutions in new houses at the moment; however we should not forget the benefits of reducing the energy demand of a building at source. If a building has very high levels of insulation to the floor, walls, roof and windows/doors, and is well sealed to reduce heat loss through unwanted ventilation, then the space heating required can be very small.

Some people take this to the levels achieved under the PassivHaus scheme, where no space heating is required at all, however this involves a very significant commitment by the client. As well as paying the additional insulation costs, the client also has to pay the specialist fees associated with the PassivHaus scheme.

Once you achieve very high levels of insulation, then the size of the renewable energy equipment needed to provide the residual heat input is much reduced. These does save capital cost, however because the savings per year start from a lower energy demand, the payback time for renewable equipment can become longer.

Insulation Standards

The kind of insulation levels needed to get to this point well exceed the current building regulation standards. A sensible standard to aim for is a U-value of 0.15 W/m²K for floors, walls and roofs. Current building regulation standards call for U-values of 0.22 for floors, 0.28 for walls and between 0.16 and 0.18 for roofs.

It is commonplace now to be able to achieve a U value of around 1.4 for a high quality double glazed unit and in the south east it is difficult to make the case for the current extra cost of triple glazing which reduces the U-value down to around 0.8 W/m²K. However as the glazing technology improves triple glazing costs will fall and this may well become the much more attractive.

Airtightness

Making a house airtight does not mean you can’t open the windows. Most new houses are built to a reasonable standard but have small gaps around windows, doors, roof and wall junctions that allow warm air to escape from the building. This directly increases the space heating load to replace the warm air lost.

Airtight buildings stop this unwanted ventilation. The ventilation is instead provided in a controlled way to all rooms using fresh air that is pre-heated using heat recovered from stale extracted air from bathrooms and kitchens. This is known as a mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR). The system runs continuously moving small amounts of air over a long period and this enables them to run almost silently. On warm days it’s easy to turn off the system and throw open the windows. There is also a boost mechanism that will increase the ventilation to bathrooms or kitchens when needed for a short period of time.

Cold Bridges

A cold bridge is a small zone of the structure that is not adequately insulated and therefore allows unwanted heat loss to occur. These are often small areas, but add up significantly over the whole house and the lost heat costs money to replace. These can be designed out at detailed drawing stage and avoided by good quality construction work on site.

Fundamental Design Decisions

There are some design decisions at the start of a project that can make significant differences to the energy costs of a building:

• Is it possible to design the house with a compact building shape to reduce the external wall and roof areas to the minmum? Clearly define the thermal (heated) envelope and the airtight layer.
• Is a southerly orientation (±30°) and large south-facing window areas possible? Are there any trees that may shade the building preventing the use of solar gains? Minimise winter shading by; garden walls, vegetation, balconies, roof overhangs and outbuildings.
• Can compact service zones be designed by placing bathrooms above or next to kitchens, etc? Consider routing and space for ventilation ducts and plant. Design short ventilation ducts with cold air ducts outside the heated envelope, warm ducts inside.
• Plan in enough space for building technology. Make sure there is space and access for regular maintenance.

Instructions For Owners

Create a user manual in a binder with user instructions, technical manuals for equipment, warranties and contact details for service and maintenance functions. This encourages the owners to use the technology in the building correctly which in turn should mean that the designed energy savings are achieved in long term use.

Payback Periods

The payback period is usually defined as the number of years is takes to recover the initial capital cost through annual savings on energy costs in use. Because the actual energy savings are so difficult to predict, this is a very calculation to have any certainty about.

However another factor is the lifespan of the energy saving equipment. Insulation generally has a lifespan equal to the building so the saving can be assumed to continue every year. However the lifespan of equipment such as air source heat pumps and solar thermal panels, as well as more conventional plumbing items, generally has a life span of around 15-20 years and so payback periods that exceed this do not make sense.

A final factor is that the better a building is insulated, the longer the payback period because the savings per year are lower.

Conclusion

It seems therefore that high insulation levels and good air tightness are an ideal first design step to reduce energy demand, with relatively low capital cost and good payback.

Solar thermal panels (hot water) are well worth considering as they are inexpensive and offer real energy savings. Panels are now readily available and a typical 2 panel package costs around £3,000 to install and they are easy to connect up to hot water cylinders with a built-in solar coil.

However the case for renewable energy equipment that has a higher capital cost such as air source heat pumps and ground source heat pumps needs careful analysis for each individual building to see whether it makes good sense to ask clients to pay the additional capital cost.

However wealthy or environmentally committed, every client has a budget, and it is our job as Architects to help them spend their budget wisely.

The Wealden Times recently invited Tim Ball to visit a ‘much loved and lived in’ 1840s country house to see just what the owners could do to reduce their carbon footprint and lower their fuel bills. Rather than coming up with all sorts of 21st century initiatives, Tim gave them a number of practical, affordable suggestions ranging from improving the insulation, to repairing windows, floorboards and doors and unstalling thermostats in different parts of the building. Click here to read the full article Appearances Can Be Deceptive, Wealden Times New Build and Restoration Supplement July 2010

jhd Architects participate in Architect in The House to support the homeless

Every year we take part in Architect in the House, a fundraising initiative between the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Shelter that’s now in its 15th year.

The scheme is your chance to receive an hour-long consultation with us on any home or design related query, whether it’s advice about creating space for a growing family or allowing more light into their home. It doesn’t have to be Grand Designs! In return for our help, we will ask you to donate a minimum of £40 to support Shelter’s work with people in housing need. Sign up at architectinthehouse.org.uk/public_registration.php