Eco-refurbishment *LINK*

[Anonymous]

Hi.

I'm a planning officer by trade and restoring a Victorian property in my spare time. I've just been on a course on sustainability where Penney Poyser gave a great talk about her 'eco-retrofitting' of a period property - very interesting stuff if you are looking to build in energy saving stuff when refurbing - lots of info on website:-


http://www.msarch.co.uk/ecohome/

 

[Anonymous]

That's an extremely interesting website, Caroline, and an very interesting project.

One detail interests me particularly - and I quote from the descriptive text:
"Except for the front face of the house, the entire exterior will be clad with a layer of rigid insulation boards, fixed to the walls mechanically with pins. This will then be reinforced with mesh and rendered for weather protection and appearance."

Is there any concern that a cladding of insulation (batts presumably) will stifle the breathability of the walls? Do you know what the mesh reinforced rendering will be - is it a manmade material?

A Dutch friend of mine is renovating an old farmhouse in the south-west of France. The walls are a mixture of stone and clay lump. He is intending to render the outside with a material that he describes as a mixture of perlite and lime mortar. This, I understand, has good insulation properties and also remains breathable. Have you ever heard of it?

 

[Anonymous]

"...a mixture of perlite and lime mortar."

Could it be a sort of limecrete? Light Expanded Clay Aggregate (LECA), probably the finer grade, mixed with lime. Or it may indeed be perlite and lime. The French are very keen on render.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure exactly what they used, but I know that they find breathability very important and are very keen on using lime. I'm not much use I'm afraid!

 

[Anonymous]

No, Biff, this isn't Leca (a product I'm very familiar with - having once worked for the company!). My friend said it's definitely Perlite. Presumably the smaller granule size makes the mix easier to use for rendering a vertical wall.

 

[Anonymous]

By the way - any idea exactly what Perlite is? Is it a silica derivative?

 

[Anonymous]

Perlite is a volcanic glass. If you hit it with a hammer it breaks into tiny spherical pieces that look pearly. It is heated very quickly to about 1000 degrees in a furnace. Although mostly silicate, it contains a few pervent of water. This turns to vapour on heating and expands the 'pearls' to 20 or more times their previous volume. It is used as an additive for lightweight plasters. I think browning contains very fine perlite. The bigger pieces are used in horticulture. The closed cell structure of the expanded perlite makes it much stronger than vermiculite, the other expanded rock used in horticulture.

 

[Anonymous]

Certainly an interesting site, with some good ideas, and a few I doubt would pay back, either financially or energy wise.

> 1Flat-plate solar collectors for heating water

This wont pay back on money or energy investment. £20 a year for £1500 is 1.3% ROI. This money could be put to better use. And of course the real cost is higher than £1500, as theres installation which takes money and energy. With not even 1% return, this has to be a clear loss.

> 2Roof insulation 300/400mm thick, made
of shredded surplus newspapers
> 4Natural plasters - clay and lime based
> 5Super-insulated hot water tank

All sound good.

A drain heat exchanger, either on the shower or whole house, would save on HW heating, particularly in a busy house, and pays back well.

> 9Heat recovering fans limit ventilation heat
loss

They do recover a fair percentage of the heat, but a humidistatic dehumidifier adds up better energy wise, and would have cost less.

> 12Triple- and double-glazed timber windows
treated with natural fungicides and stains

retrofitting dg is not usually worthwhile. Methinks they replaced the pvc more for showpiece reasons.

> 14Second hand, natural and reclaimed furniture

a simple resource and energy saving measure much overlooked.

> 16Copper rainwater goods with filter for rain
harvesting

Used pvc from the local auction room would be a greener choice, and the biocidal benefit of copper could have been had by a piece of copper scrap in the storage tank, eg a bit of the pulled out electrical cable. But I agree it looks nice.

This is one of the things that reminds me that company promotion comes first on this house. Which is fair enough.

> 18Rainwater storage for use in WCs, washing
machine and outside tap

I wonder what are the figures on that.

> The window sills and hearth were finished with hand-made, English tiles

hand made goods are much more energy intensive. Humans are very energy inefficient production machines.

> The cooker is a combi-oven which allows the user to mix microwave with conventional grill or oven,

I think these deserve wider use than they get, now that the price is keen.

> A damp proof course was then installed by injecting a silicone compound into holes drilled in the base of the wall just above floor level.

no comment <IMG SRC="http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussing/smileys/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">

> While the new basin and tap have no particular ecological features,

An aerator would help. Ditto one of those things I cant think of the name of. It dangles from the tap spout and only lets water thru when a hand or jug is under the tap. Common in Aus.

A nice piece of work, interesting ideas, spreads awareness. Also good self promotion of course.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

"Humans are very energy inefficient production machines"
Yes, NT, but humans are 'on' all the time whether they are hewing oak or wielding golf clubs.

Estimating payback times is tricky because we don't know what the price of hydrocarbon fuels will be in the future. The past is not much of a guide as we enter the post-peak-oil era.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Biff. Structure and production process sounds very similar to Leca, which is produced in a big revolving furnace.

 

[Anonymous]

>>"Humans are very energy inefficient production machines"

>Yes, NT, but humans are 'on' all the time whether they are hewing oak or wielding golf clubs.

Thats the classic reply, but I dont think its really all good. We have a certain number of humans at any time, and need to have them do something. What should they do, produce goods at vast energy consumption, when those goods could be produced much more efficiently, or, as I think...

- produce goods mechanically with high efficiency, thus enabling us all to afford much more goods and services, which of course include many essential ones, educational ones, research, safety, improvement of the environment, recycling, etc

- move all capable humans from pointless inefficient production to seriously needed areas such as medical care, research and development, drawing up and applying new means to give us higher safety, and all the other things that are of much greater value.

Bear in mind that this intelligent use of people is what produces new technology, which is what enables us to improve efficiency, in manufacture, education, and so on.

Using people to hand produce goods is exactly what the Victorians got rid of as far as they could, with dramatic success. All well and good for a one off special piece, but for mass production its a disaster. Its ironic that hand production has a green image today.

> Estimating payback times is tricky because we don't know what the price of hydrocarbon fuels will be in the future. The past is not much of a guide as we enter the post-peak-oil era.

There are vast reservoirs of oil still underground in undeveloped regions, eg China, and tar sands and so on waiting to come online when prices rise just a small amount further. Bear in mind a DHW system will likely last 20-30 years, we dont need to look long term ahead. If it cant even manage 1% now, no way is it going to achieve 5% any time in its life imho. So the solar DHW is a dead loss. Its either only there for the image, or someone made some simple calculation mistakes.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think we're going to agree NT. It's mass production that has given us plastic dullness. It's handweaving tht gave us medieval cottages and cathedrals.
Now take a case in point. Me. I could get a bank loan to buy a big computer controlled milling machine that could churn out hundreds of oak window frames. It would be very 'efficient'. But it would have to be because I would have to earn an awful lot to pay the bank the interest on the loan. I might not have time to pop indoors for a cuppa and check PPUK. And it would be quite difficult to train the machine to look at each piece of timber and work out just where to cut it to make the best use of a variable material. And there would always be the risk that the finished job would look mass produced and nobody would want to buy them because you could buy an identcal one from another producer who had borrowed even more for an even more 'efficeint' machine and so could sell them cheaper.

Oh, and you are dead wrong about oil. Trust me, I'm a geologist.

 

[Anonymous]

I expect we wont agree, but I always like to learn. Lets explore.

> I don't think we're going to agree NT. It's mass production that has given us plastic dullness.

Yes, and before plastic dullness was metal unaffordableness, and glass fragility and accidents. What we have today is a big leap forward from that.

Mass produced items are mostly dull, but the lowered costs of production enable a minority to be artistic and beautiful and still affordable. You only need look at the vast range of plastic goods to find both dullness, beauty, low cost, and wide variety. This simply wasnt possible before.

To clarify further, I think your quote of 'plastic dullness' is mixing several issues into one, and we ought to separate them to be clear. Theres the question of plastics manufacture, the question of mass production, the question of dullness versus art, and the question of mechanisation.

> It's handweaving tht gave us medieval cottages and cathedrals.

Well... The average ctizen owned just ONE change of clothes, and the number of persons per house was high compared to today, due to the high cost of both, due to hand production.

Again theres more than one issue involved. The production of cathedrals was not a result of hand production, indeed it was held back by such inefficient hand production methods. It was the product of an uber-ambitious financial and political power grab by the church. Had they been able to produce their windows bells and stone blocks on machines, we would have either seen even more cathedrals from the period, or else some of the money would have been used to produce something else as well as those buildings.

> Now take a case in point. Me. I could get a bank loan to buy a big computer controlled milling machine that could churn out hundreds of oak window frames. It would be very 'efficient'. But it would have to be because I would have to earn an awful lot to pay the bank the interest on the loan.

This means this example is not so efficient after all. The big energy input is in the machine itself, rather than the manufacture, in your example.

We can not assume a machine is more efficient in every case. Naturally its not. Nor is a huge machine appropriate for a small business, as we see in your example. However the vast majority of production today is mechanised precisely because it is in most cases more efficient.

> I might not have time to pop indoors for a cuppa and check PPUK.

the result of a large costly machine in a small business, ie a mismatch. The transition from homespun to machine woollens saved people a great deal of time.

> And it would be quite difficult to train the machine to look at each piece of timber and work out just where to cut it to make the best use of a variable material.

Yes, I quite agree, but again this tells us machine technology doesnt win on every point every time - it doesnt tell us that mechanised production is inferior overall. There are some apps where they dont do as well, and some where they do.

Lets try to clarify with an example. Lets say instead of a behemoth of a machine, your workshop buys a £5000 woodworking machine with spindle routers, joint cutters, thicknessers saw and planes on one tabletop. The extra production output might pay for the machine in 1.5 yrs say. Now you still grade your wood by hand, but the machine cuts the joints, thicknseses and moulds automatically and at rapid speed. Now youve got a machine well suited to your one man window business, with which you can make any size frame to order, that still makes just as good use fo the wood, and that makes the business more efficient, both financially and energywise.

> And there would always be the risk that the finished job would look mass produced and nobody would want to buy them because you could buy an identcal one from another producer who had borrowed even more for an even more 'efficeint' machine and so could sell them cheaper.

Thats a side effect of behemoths, which turn out vast numbers of identical products. Its not a problem of mechanisation per se. Behemoths are used to minimise costs in large businesses. They make things more affordable to people who dont have the means or interest for better goods. By reducing energy and resource use, they improve our lives greatly. It is precisely because of behemoth machines that we can all afford washing machines, microwaves, computers, and so on. Theres nothing wrong with behemoth production, one merely need be aware that like everything in life, sometimes its the best option, and sometimes not.

NT
(typing this on a computer made affordable by a behemoth factory)

 

[Anonymous]

And cost-effectiveness depends so much on the quantity that is required. Thousands of identical units need behemoth machines; tailor-making windows is easier with (as you said, NT) a certain amount of mechanisation; were I to make one small cupboard door I could do it with some decent hand-tools, and to invest in complicated machinery that would only be used once would be a ludicrous waste of money.

Also, ugliness is not a consequence of mass-production. It's cause is to a large extent the appalling taste of the mass-market. As a wise man once remarked - nobody ever made a loss by underestimating the taste of the Great British Public.

 

[Anonymous]

Don't forget that a lot of victorian building stuff was mass produced eg windows.
They wouldn't have made each set of windows for 50+ houses in my street without it. They would have cut loads of yards of beading into loads of lengths etc and then created kits of bits which were then put together to create the windows.
The cornices weren't individually made by Fred carefully hand moulding each one either.

 

[Anonymous]

OK, NT, I guess I'm pretty much where you describe. I don't actually whittle windows with a penknife!

 

[Anonymous]

Very true, Hazel, and all done without electricity.

 

[Anonymous]

Actually Victorian housing illustrates how the taste process turns full curcle. What do I mean?

Victorian brick houses were mostly built from mass produced items. Slates, bricks, wood frames, doors, concrete lintels and steps, laths, floorboards, ironomngery, most of them were machine made rather than hand made.

Because they were machine made, they were more affordable. Because they were more affordable, a wide range of mass produced choices could be picked from. Because of this, the houses could afford lots of character.

The circle I had in mind above is that mass machine production made items identical, but also affordable, and thus buyers cold pick from a wide choice of ornate designs. And they did! The Victorians went potty over ornateness. This is very much part of the character of such houses.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

I half agree, but I think commonness makes us no longer appreciate something. A lot of what we have today is better designed, better finished, and more artful than in the past, but we tend to dismiss the common and taken for granted in favour of the rare, even when the rare is cruder.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

You should try reading a book by a bloke called michael mobbs - he's re-built his house so that it consumes virtually nothing in resources