Making a highly efficient, sustainable home

[Music] [Music] on the north side of austro you're met by a geometric Masterpiece a wood baton wall all set at an angle this three-bedroom passive house gem is the hard work of two self-builders who have the skills to complete most of the project themselves we had done some construction before I'm at the very beginning when I became a chartered architect Martin and I set up a property development company so we um used to buy flats and renovate them and we did all the construction work for that ourselves so we kind of taught ourselves you know how to do that as we went along we had quite a lot of years of kind of mixing construction with design and so I think you know we were familiar with joinery and a plumbing tiling decorating things like that and so we sort of felt fairly equipped I think to start the build gaining the skills is only part of this self-built journey it is also driven by the reality of living in cold old properties we had trouble getting the the property above say 16 degrees in the winter and we had a 36 kilowatt gas boiler um and we couldn't get above 16 had a lot of single glazing at turrets and that kind of thing and then one winter we're like this is just too much now um do you want to go and build a house first of course you need a plot of land we did a lot of research when we were looking for our plot and we looked online for probably over a year and we looked at maybe about 60 sites in total not all in person obviously and then we kind of narrowed it down made a bit of a short list and then started to go and see sites and we did a mixture of online searching as I say and estate agencies and and then we found this plot the site is two plots we actually came to look at the other smaller plot but because this one is at the southern end of the two and we thought this would give us more control over you know what was to the south of us and so on because we decided at that point to do a passive house we thought that was really important the couple had bigger plans than just building a house they aimed high and went for the passive house standard for their self-build the site when we first came and we first bought it and it was really actually quite bare it was just a field with one tree one confer tree sitting in the middle of it which of no sort of Merit so we took that down but the rest was really just a a bearer field and it's quite a sloping site so there's quite a flat bit at the top where we eventually built and then it slopes down to the burn at the bottom of the garden there's a sort of Circa about six meter change in level over the whole site having secured the plot it was time to put their plans in motion and assess how they were going to build their dwelling the site came with a planning permission for a traditional style house and which we were Keen to obviously adapt what it did give us is the precedent of a planet primary approval on the site which was really good so when you would be able to get something we just wanted to obviously push it to something more contemporary than the original planning and that's what we did and from a planning point of view he was not overlooking on a flat roof for example but we're out with a Conservation Area can't really be seen from a lot of houses so there was no real justification for not allowing us to have that so we pushed back on it a bit and were able to get what we wanted they took their ideas further and tried to make the house as sustainable as possible we had to do some justification of the design choices that we were making and but for instance talking to them about biodiversity and that was the whole purpose of the Sedum roof and that that functions better flat and not on a slope because then you don't need irrigation and so on so you know on the whole I think he was receptive to it it was just a bit unusual so and partly also because we were in a backland site it meant we could have a bit more design flexibility than if say we were making a street Frontage the base of the house is a thermal Bridge free isoquip Foundation which insulates the building from the ground up what we really wanted from your house was something energy efficient because of our previous property we knew that um as well as it being expensive to run it was also not comfortable so we really had a desire for somewhere comfortable and cheaper to run that was the 10 and two things that we wanted to do and that led us down the route of pacifos in the first place so as we sort of built on that we had another few Ambitions that we wanted to incorporate that we felt were kind of complementary to the pacifier standard and one was um sustainability gold in the Scottish technical standards which has sort of more and maybe broader sustainability agenda and so better space standards better acoustic standards daylighting standards and then the third thing that we wanted to bring to the table was as many natural materials as possible so we built fully with timber frame and wood fiber and so on so so those three things from the outset we felt kind of all came together really well kind of married really well the foundation is topped with timber frame cavity walls which are then stuffed with gutex wood fiber insulation and topped off internally with Vapor block board during the build they even mastered new skills we've never made an airtight building before so that was new um we'd never done diagonal cladding before and we'd obviously never built something of the scale just the two of us or mostly just the two of us and so that was quite a adventure the budget for the job was going to be tight as they would be self-financing the build as they went along because we had this limited budget we decided to do to take a self-built approach so we knew that we would be building a large proportion of the house ourselves when we started we hadn't quite decided exactly how much but mainly that was to do with finishes so Martin took 12 weeks off work and worked with two we hired two joiners and the three of them stick built the timber frame in 2014 we couldn't find a kit company that was making a kind of passive house ready kit that was easily available so instead of having a main contractor we did as much as we could ourselves and then we coordinated um the odd trade that we needed to like an electrician for example um to do the things that we couldn't do ourselves our budget primarily was how much money we had at the time so we knew it wasn't enough to finish the house and so we had a scenario where we knew would run out it's sort of three quarters of the way through and then the rest we'd have to do sort of slowly ourselves making the money to then use the money to actually do the work so um and went over um a little bit but um we just um just kind of had to go with it and and sort of almost deal with it later yeah we kept a very detailed spreadsheet as we went of all our expenditure and so on and and we did plan for each of the next stages so we knew you know how much we needed to to complete each of the next bits as we were working our way through the whole process and so we were organized about it but we didn't know that you know we didn't have enough in our hands to make it to the end quite early on the couple were living in the house being on site meant they could spend every spare waking hour on their home because we've sold our last flat quite quickly and a lot more quickly than we had anticipated and we ended up moving to kepin before we even had our building weren't approved so we were here quite early on in the whole process so we rented in the village and then I we moved and rented a different place and then we did the usual lived in a caravan for nine months at the side of the house I am over a winter and that was really pretty tough and because we were also running our business from the two bears Caravan so um yeah that was probably the hardest point I would say and then um we decided to actually look the building is kind of you know certainly wind and water site it's staying at a nice even temperature and so we decided to sort of camp out in the house so we had again one room one or two rooms that were livable in enough and then the rest we just kind of all our stuff was packed into the spare bedroom and then and we just did the rest as we as we could it wasn't just living arrangements which were a challenge on this building cladding became the task which would slow the whole build down we were quite fast initially getting the frame up were relatively fast and although it was stick built so by about the first year we'd had the whole Fremont wind and water tight and then we kind of um worked on a an elevation each year cladding it amongst doing things inside when it was sort of winter or the weather wasn't as good um but overall from sort of start to completion it was a six year build and primarily because it was our evenings and weekend doing the work ourselves yeah eventually the house was finished with its Sedum roof solar panels and water heaters all up top the cladding although laborious is a is a Triumph with all its geometric complexities around the window openings a difficult detail but so effective it's the rub to achieve this look involves plenty of time and it's tough when self-building to hold down a job build Becomes all-consuming of any spare time I think the biggest challenge on the build was actually managing our time because we obviously were running a business at the same time and had to work to make a lot of the money to finish it so it was kind of working out when we could do certain things because the weather was great it was a lovely day you wanted to be cladding so you'd maybe have to balance taking a day off work but then working in the evening so there was a lot of logistical things to sort of run two things simultaneously I suppose and then we also had to do all this aborting of materials and material quantity takeoffs and all that kind of thing simultaneously as well so there's a lot of a lot of input needed paperwork wise for that kind of thing they learned lessons along the way and there were a few costs that resulted from how long the build went on if you're going to spend a long time doing a build yourself you're probably going to have to pay for some materials that might end up being disposed of membranes to Shield the building from the weather during the build because we took a long time to do it particular cladding so we wanted to make sure they're sort of more important materials the wood fibers and things weren't going to get wet behind their cladding so we we temporarily covered the building with our membrane on top of the cladding buttons and it removed and disposed of it each season we were very careful in the amount of quantity of products we bought because we knew we didn't want to pay for disposal but also because we're buying ourselves and money was tight so we used a lot of offcuts to do bits and pieces of the build that maybe would be skipped normally managing trades means you're managing people and as the end user you have control over who you hire and for how long if you ask somebody to do something on your build and it seems like they don't really want to do it they're probably not the best person for you and there was a couple of Trades maybe their original grown worker who and we had to park company with early on um a few other bits of people on different things that you know if they're if they're if you maybe if you don't get on originally it's probably best to just walk away there there and then they're rather than persevering with it if somebody's reluctant to take on the job then we sort of find that that means that their heart isn't in it so they're not going to do a great job for you so I think yeah that was quite an important one to step forward was really to try and when you are putting together a team even if it's a small team but to find people who are as enthused about your ability as you are and then you'll you'll end up with a better result there are also lessons to take on board about how you approach your build the best piece of advice I could give someone who's looking to build a sustainable home would be to plan and prepare before you start on site I think as much preparation as you can do on as possible before you put a speed in the ground is just so valuable so both Financial Planning and design planning so that you don't change your design once you're on site you know try and stick to your original design as much as possible and do your research because there are lots of aspects to sustainability so you know you want to make sure that your choices you're making are all compatible and and that um yeah you feel like you've kind of really researched it and and you've caught you're confident that the decisions you've made are the ones you want to carry forward the design uses the glazing on the sunny south side of the building to capture the sunlight through the winter months to let that warmth flood in they've created an inner double height atrium the result is a stunning contemporary interior light and fresh with the advantages of comfortable passive house living with so much south facing glass overheating is always being mitigated against so when we were I'm working on the design with our pacifist certifier we were not only focused on how to keep the building warm in Winter and what that would be like we were also concerned with um mitigating over any overheating risks so one of the things that we discussed with them in detail was our master bedroom because it faces West and we have a really large fixed window and it's much smaller openable window and we have no bracelet or shading devices so whilst we have these thick walls that do help to give us some reveal shading we did have a conversation about that room being the kind of highest risk room for overheating so we modeled a couple of different scenarios in our phpp from no window opening to minimal window opening with kind of slow air speeds and so on right up to okay what happens if we just chuck all the windows open and the bedroom door is open and so on and what we came to was a kind of balance that we thought was workable which was that we can open the roof light in our ensuite and leave the ensuite door open and open the window in our bedroom and the room still should stay you know within the phpp parameters for overheating and even if our bedroom doors shut because at night obviously you habitually close your bedroom doors even if you're the only people in the house so that was something we gave quite a lot of thought to and I think for us on this house the conclusion we came to with the certifier was that that was an acceptable approach to take because we were going to be the occupants so we were fully on board with that idea of having to open the roof light and leave it open all night that kind of thing I think if you were designing something that wasn't a private home you would have a different conversation and but for us in this case that was that was the kind of solution that we adopted it's a striking building with its diagonal cladding already mellowing into the landscape with a sedum roof and water retention system the house is an ambitious project to take on as two self-builders we feel that it's a really sustainable house not only because it's a certified passive house so it has a really low operational energy and high thermal Comfort but it also hits these other targets that we wanted to hit and we have low flow fixtures and fittings throughout so we have water saving measures and so on and we have a really good acoustic separation between all of the rooms so even though we have this open plan layout and this big double height we still have really quiet peaceful bedrooms which I think is really important in a home I feel like it's a really Sustainable Building because we try to tackle lots of different approaches and and also the use of materials in our choice of materials so untreated cladding for instance and wood fiber insulation throughout and a timber frame I mean all of those things contribute to a really low embodied carbon at the end of the build which wasn't something we initially aimed for but was a really nice kind of consequence of those choices with its contemporary design inside and out this building demonstrates that the self-build dream is alive and that the exacting passive house standard is attainable to self-builders [Music]

Channel: House Planning Help

Views: 19,217

Keywords: Passivhaus, passive house, home, house, energy efficiency, Ostro, self build, eco homes, timber frame, sustainability, Martin McCrae, Mhairi Grant, sweat equity, Paper Igloo, healthy home

Id: V_Dhq-FMuf4

Length: 15min 48sec (948 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022