Sustainable Building Guide

[Flyfisher]

Not really as grand as the thread title, but I've just had a flick through this: http://www.easyflip.co.uk/Jewson_Sustainability_Guide_2010/enter.html

It's aimed mainly at new builds, but contains some interesting background information regarding standards as well as info on solar PV and thermal systems.

The NEW Sustainable Building Guide provides legislative information and details of government incentives, as well as a comprehensive range of sustainable products in line with the Code for Sustainable Homes - including foundations, flooring, walls, insulation, timber, windows, lofts and roofs.

 

[Penners]

info on solar PV and thermal systems.

FF, you read my mind! I've just been thinking that I must do a bit of research on that topic.

Many thanks.

 

[biffvernon]

If you want to know about solar pv I'm your man. I can tell you lots of useful stuff, including the fact that you get very little electricity when your panels have six inches of snow on them.

 

[JoceAndChris]

! Are you on candles then? How pretty!

 

[JohnB]

Being from Jewsons, it's obviously biased towards using mainstream building materials, many of which have high embodied energy. It's also worth looking into materials such as straw bale and hemcrete, that can be used to create more traditional looking houses, as well as being more sustainable. I haven't looked through the whole Jewsons document as it's loading painfully slowly, but it's worth considering higher standards than Code for Sustainable Homes, such as PassivHaus. Here's a nice introduction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I20uaXAhuGk), and there are more detailed videos on the Green Building Store channel. This is a new build, but there are people doing renovations to PassivHaus standards.

As far as period houses go, it means big changes in a lot of cases. I've just started a Transition Housing Group in my area. We are going to start off looking into making our old stone houses as energy efficient as possible, and there is a lot of research to do.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

If you want to know about solar pv I'm your man. I can tell you lots of useful stuff, including the fact that you get very little electricity when your panels have six inches of snow on them.

See that's where your coal-fired power station hook-up comes in handy! :wink: Plus it reduces the likelihood of future snowfall!

Seriously though, if anyone is about to research solar PV or solar thermal water heating (if that is the correct term) then I'd also be very interested in the outcomes. We had a thread a few weeks back... must go and resurrect it.

 

[Flyfisher]

Being from Jewsons, it's obviously biased towards using mainstream building materials, many of which have high embodied energy.

Agreed, although I wasn't holding it up as an example of best green practice, just offering it for the general background info it contained.

It's encouraging to see the mainstream building suppliers beginning to take these things seriously . . . must mean such things are becoming commercially viable!

 

[JohnB]

This is a good place to start - http://www.greenbuildingbible.co.uk/

 

[Penners]

See that's where your coal-fired power station hook-up comes in handy! :wink: Plus it reduces the likelihood of future snowfall!

The unarguable logic in those sage words is terrifying!

 

[JohnB]

See that's where your coal-fired power station hook-up comes in handy! :wink: Plus it reduces the likelihood of future snowfall!

The unarguable logic in those sage words is terrifying!

We've got plenty of coal fired power stations, and lots of snow (at least you lot in the east have!), but the planet is warming up. A perverse effect of climate change? We start the trouble, and it appears to have the opposite effect here so no one believes it's happening, so we keep burning coal and making the problem worse :roll:.