Squid102

We visited a Passive House last week where the MVHR was in the utility room. Render: I really like the look of the silicone silicate renders for low/zero maintenance - hydrophobic, self cleaning and very durable. I rue the day we decided to paint our 1920s pebbledash.

His opinion of that was -"overengineered unnecessary expense". ?

We saw that the other night. My husband is now looking at the back of the house talking about double height glazing. We had a visit from an architect yesterday. We have no doubt that if we knew exactly what we wanted then he would do a good enough job but he didn't come up with any ideas of his own. There seemed very little inventiveness or flare. When we got on to the near Passive part of the build he said we could just have a building with extra insulation. When I mentioned MVHR he said "You don't want one of those, they're expensive. If it gets a bit stuffy, just open some windows." He's not on our wavelength so the search continues. It's been a busy weekend as we also had a good look around the Emsworth Passive House today at their open day. It was a bit warm with 20 people in there and sunshine!

Thanks. That's useful. I know exactly what I need from the studio. It's a mixed media craft studio and I know what I need right down to the rough dimensions. The workshop is for my husband's wood based crafts and as a replacement for the garage. Air filtration will be important because of the dust he'll generate. It seems a bit of a luxury for the building to be so well insulated but we both want somewhere that will be comfortable at any time of year. It will also include a toilet and shower so that the studio could be a guest bedroom if need be. I did consider self-designing but started to lose confidence when faced with things like building regs, difficulty getting enough fall for the sewer pipe and worrying that I could build something that we would cook in in the summer! A little expert help early on could save money in the long run. I don't know how we missed that Channel 4 series!

Hi We are at the "finding an architect" stage for a 2 part project: 1) Fairly standard 2-storey extension to a 1920s detached house (extra bedroom, utility room, bigger kitchen) 2) Near-Passive detached studio and workshop in the back garden We'll get a local company to do most of the extension but my husband and I intend building as much of the studio/workshop ourselves. The past few weeks have been a steep learning curve going from "What's a strip foundation?" to comparing the technical differences between different passive slabs and "How would I make that light socket airtight?" We don't have an architect yet. Friends' recommendations have been people who could only draw nice pictures for the planners. I live in an area where most of the architects seem to design huge expensive properties or are just too busy. I put my details into the Home Owners Alliance "Find an Architect" website yesterday and have suddenly been contacted by number of companies. But of the 8 names I was given, only one was a qualified architect. However, one of the architectural technologist does seem to have some impressive work on her portfolio. Should I be restricting my search to architects or should I also be considering architectural technologists? Or, does anyone have any architect recommendations in the Surrey/Hants/Berks border area?