3 posts tagged “green”
There's a two-day show on homebuilding taking place this weekend at Glasgow's SECC, organised by Homebuilding and Renovating magazine, but being a few years off from the great move it'd be frustrating to go along right now and marvel at all the things we, er, can't do owt with just yet. Come this time next year, however, and we'll be there for the Sunday which, if it's anything like this year, will focus on eco-homes, from building to ventilation, sewage to power generation. Very nifty stuff - just too soon!
The Scotland Homebuilding & Renovating Show
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Then again, that may be to its benefit. While Seymour's is a great daunting tome, exhaustive and perhaps a little too Good Life for some, 21st Century Smallholder is a lot less work. There's a lot here for city-dwellers, for those with only a balcony or the smallest of gardens to grow in (sadly, at this point in time, we've got neither) and it offers plenty to pick and choose from. Ultimately, it probably works best as something to read when considering what changes you'd like to make in the future, making vague concepts become a realistic proposition in your life, then pointing you on in the direction of more specific books to actually get to grips with the practical side of it all.
All the same, 21st Century Smallholder is an enjoyable and easy read, well worth hunting down from the library. It makes home-based environmentalism sound economical, practical and not so disruptive, while the wide range of suggested options may include things you'd never even contemplated. Before reading this, I'd never considered the possibility of having a beehive in our future garden - after reading the genuinely enthusiastic piece on beekeeping and the benefits, it sounds damn near essential.
From Worldchanging.com:
Zero-carbon building in the UK
Hana Loftus
December 22, 2006 5:43 AMLast month's pre-Budget statement by the UK government was heralded as 'green' when in reality, most of its measures were pretty puny. A mere £5 extra tax on flights, anyone? But one measure that was mentioned did get radical. The government committed to making all new houses in the UK zero-carbon within the next ten years. By progressively tightening the building codes in a series of stages, builders will be forced to meet higher and higher standards of both energy efficiency, and self-generation of renewables.
In the mean time, zero-carbon homes will be free from stamp duty tax for a limited period to encourage homebuyers to make the switch, and housebuilders to start raising their game. Housing that is funded by the government will have to become carbon-neutral in a shorter timeframe. And we've got a Planning Policy StatementCode for Sustainable Homes.
It's taken a while here, and we are far behind Scandinavia at the moment, but it looks like the UK will be the place to innovate if the government keeps its promise.
More locally, a couple of months ago I was happily surprised to find the following online - and even more to learn it's six years old, but still relevant. A comprehensive and inspiring guide that printed retails for £35, the whole thing is available for free from the following link as PDFs for each chapter. Worth a look, whether you're in Scotland or not.
Sustainable Housing Design Guide for Scotland
The Sustainable Housing Design Guide for Scotland, written by Fionn Stevenson and Nick Williams, was first published in 2000 by The Stationery Office. The content was commissioned by Communities Scotland (then Scottish Homes) with additional support from Scottish Natural Heritage. The online version has been developed with the purpose of widening access to the Guide and providing users with a more interactive way of interrogating the content.
[...] Sustainable development means economic prosperity and security, enhanced social welfare and social inclusion, and a healthy natural environment. These are all connected; success in one policy area is dependent on success in others.
[...] Against this background this design guide is intended to provide comprehensive and user friendly guidance to the incorporation of sustainability principles into maintaining, rehabilitating and developing housing.
Which in turn led me to reading about the Passivhaus standard for energy use in buildings, a voluntary standard for the design of ultra-low energy housing requiring very little heating. The Wikipedia entry makes a fascinating read, as does the UK site it links to, PassivHaus UK, from which came the following list of basic principles for the standard:
While the initial expenditure to bring this about could be pretty high, the savings would be immediately apparent and ongoing - imagine the joy of being able to tear up your gas bill for ever. For a more general European overview of this sort of thing, check out Promotion of European Passive Houses, from which you can download PDFs of info relevant to your country - for the UK, there's the National Publication and Passive House Solutions.
- very good levels of insulation with minimal thermal bridges
- well thought out utilisation of solar and internal gains
- excellent level of airtightness
- good indoor air quality, provided by a whole house mechanical ventilation system with highly efficient heat recovery
And from that, we end up at the Building Research Establishment, a research/consultancy group whose mission is "to build a better world and our vision is our unmistakable imprint on a highly regarded and sustainable built environment." Their response to the new Code for Sustainable Homes can be read here and leads on to BREEAM: the BRE Environmental Assessment Method, including a home-specific section which has formed the basis of the new Code. I like the cut of their jib - and, to localise things further, they have offices all over the UK... including the Highlands. Perfect.
