It’s been a great 2010 at the Trafford Eco-House, we’ve not posted updates recently not due to lack of activity, but the opposite! The garden’s been going well and we’ve got trout and beds of winter veg surviving the snow. The pace isn’t going to stop in 2011 though, this is the year when the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Insulation’
22 Mar
Insulating effect of curtains
We’re looking at windows at the moment, and trying to work out what will fit into our budget while giving us the best possible insulation effect (U-Value). The PassivHaus standards state that our windows should have a U value of <= 0.8 W/m2K, so we’re going to try and get as close to that as [...]
8 Feb
Wood-Fired Ranges in a PassivHaus
In my PassivHaus Renovation post I said that: Any non-solar water heating to be Gas Condensing boiler or CHP – wood fired stoves are not permitted (this conflicts with my peak-oil resilience planning) In return I got a comment posted by Andy Simmonds at the AECB stating: The AECB standards do not proscribe wood stoves, nor [...]
2 Feb
Insulation: Understanding R and U values
The more I get into looking at insulating our house, the more I need to learn! At the moment I’m fighting off a swarm of mismatched R, U, and k values. All I want to know is what type of insulation we need to come close to the PassivHaus standards but everything I see is quoting [...]
28 Jan
PassivHaus Building with SIPs – Structural Insulated Panels
Looks like our dream house may be an as-PassivHaus-as-possible extension of a traditional 3-bed semi. So now I’m looking at how we make that happen. One of the things I’ve come across are Structural Insulated Panels. Essentially these are a thick “sandwich”, with two wooden panels separated by a thick layer of insulating foam. One of [...]
3 Jan
A Passivhaus (Passive House) renovation?
The picture on the left is a thermograph – showing the difference in lost heat between a conventional house (on the left) and a house built to PassivHaus standards (on the right). Which house would you rather be living in when Russia cuts gas supplies? The PassivHaus standard, as interpreted for the UK by the [...]
23 Aug
Preparation: Insulation is the key post-peak-oil
Not very glamorous I know: not as sexy as a roaring fire or gently glowing Rayburn, not as high-tech as solar hotwater or a heat-pump, but it strikes me that insulation really is the key to keeping warm post-peak-oil. Lets face it, as oil prices get out of reach, gas and electric will follow. People [...]
20 Aug
Inspiration: Andy Hunt, Trafford Sustainability Officer
This is great to see – someone really walking the walk! Andy’s house – “Green Cottage“ - is an inspiration to anyone committed to improving the house they’ve got. It’s a great mix of everyday solutions and more advanced technologies. They have a wood burning stove with back boiler supplementing their Solar hot water. For power [...]
