Tim From Camberley

[Tim731]

Afternoon All,

 

We built our own home back in 2008 , with a number of eco products :

 

1.Thermal store from DPS

2.Genvex 315

3.Triple glazed windows from Skalla

4.Lindab gutters and pipes

5.Jaga radiators

6.Karpen cat 8 cable

7.rainwater havesting (Toilets via rainwater )

 

Now 11 years later these have stood the test of time and we are looking at some improvements and exchange of ideas ,

 

Tim

[Ed Davies]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Be interesting to hear what you feel is “eco” about some of those products. Items 4, 5 and 6 particularly intrigue me. Is it a matter of lifetime vs embodied energy or something like that?

[Bitpipe]

Hi Tim, thanks for offering to share your experience, especially since we went for a fabric first approach and have relatively few 'eco' products.

 

Would be good to understand your water & energy consumption / cost over the 11 years.

 

To what standard did you build the fabric of the house (passive, SAP A etc) or what u values / airtightness did you achieve?

 

Given you're in SE like us, where rainfall can be hit & miss, what size tank did you provision and how often do you need to revert to mains for backup? Any noticeable staining of the ceramics with rainwater?

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Bitpipe

[Jeremy Harris]

Welcome.

 

I went out of my way to try and ignore anything badged "eco", really on a point of principle, as it's become a bit of a marketing term that means little in terms of how any product performs, what it's whole life impact on the environment is etc.

 

Unfortunately there are some people in our village that refer to our house as "the eco house", just because it's a fairly airtight and well-insulated house that needs little energy to heat, and it annoys the living daylights out of me.  What we built was a low energy house, that has a relatively low level of embodied energy in it's construction, and which is a net CO₂ sink, rather than source, over the course of a year.  Because of the particular incentives that were on offer at the time we built it, we have no energy bills, no water bill and no sewerage charge, so the running costs are just council tax and insurance.  We also made a point of not including anything that would impact on air quality, so we have no appliances that burn fuels.  The latter is pretty critical living where we do, near the bottom of a deep valley, as we get severe, and pretty toxic, winter air pollution from those that insist on burning wood.

 

We designed our house in 2012, and since then things have moved on a bit, so there is now a greater choice of build methods, energy conservation measures, etc available.  It's also far more common to build to the sort of energy performance level that we built to now.  We've learned a lot about how a passive house behaves, and some of the key things that have a significant impact on comfort, and there are definitely one or two things that I'd change if we ever decided to build again (which I doubt we will).

 

[Conor]

Welcome. How are your annual running costs? Not many houses of that spec and that age about.

 

Cat 8 cable.... Even cat6a is overkill for domestic application. Can't fathom why you'd spend a fortune on 40gbs cable that you never make the most of?

[ToughButterCup]

Welcome.

Here's an idea, pop up the M6, J33 and show me how to do it, please. Ta!

Ian

[mvincentd]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

Unfortunately there are some people in our village that refer to our house as "the eco house"

hah.....i've had to write to the parish council to ask them to stop referring to ours as such.  Everyone in the village who meets me tells me i'm building one.

Such is the understanding of 'eco'....having a green roof is next to godliness.  This despite the hardly covert way in which i've thundered 150 lorry loads of muck away through the village and brought in 10 lorry loads of concrete.

[Jeremy Harris]

6 minutes ago, mvincentd said:

hah.....i've had to write to the parish council to ask them to stop referring to ours as such.  Everyone in the village who meets me tells me i'm building one.

Such is the understanding of 'eco'....having a green roof is next to godliness.  This despite the hardly covert way in which i've thundered 150 lorry loads of muck away through the village and brought in 10 lorry loads of concrete.

 

I'm on our parish council, and one of those who always refers to our place as "the eco house" is a fellow councillor...

[Ferdinand]

Is there an opportunity for any education, here?

 

The big issue with residential planet-killing is owner occupied not renovated from before 2013, and more horribly as they get older.

 

Suspect that his house costs as much to run as 5 of yours.

 

Has anyone tried this .. I chat about it as and when I can, but have not been more systematic than that except with tenants.

 

F

Edited October 3, 2019 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

Is there an opportunity for any education, here?

 

The big issue with residential planet-killing is owner occupied not renovated from before 2013, and more horribly as they get older.

 

Suspect that his house costs as much to run as 5 of yours.

 

Has anyone tried this .. I chat about it as and when I can, but have not been more systematic than that except with tenants.

 

F

"conventional wisdom" is that it is cars, particularly those with internal combustion engines that are killing the planet.  But a simple fag packet calculation shows our previous house burned more litres of Kerosene in a year than my gas guzzler car  consumes of petrol.

 

Yet there is no big push to make old houses more energy efficient.  

 

Oh and road fuel is taxed to extreme, because it is bad, but house fuel is not.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

Yet there is no big push to make old houses more energy efficient.  

That is because it is still early days in environmentalism.

 

it is hard to convince someone to spend £10k or £20k on an asset, that in the recent past, increased by that much in a year or so.

Much easier, and financially simpler, to get the car companies to market a package that is faster, safer, prettier and cheaper to run, to replace a diminishing asset that needs changing anyway.

[NSS]

Welcome Tim, and apologies if some of the previous responses appear a little dismissive or disparaging. Sounds like your property has served you well but you recognise that technologies have moved on in the intervening 11 years and there may be ways in which you can update your home to take advantage of these - whilst at the same time sharing your decade-plus experiences.

 

As you'll have noticed, people here tend to prefer the 'low-energy' descriptive rather 'eco' but please don't let such hang-ups discourage you from getting involved here. None of us have all the answers and you'll undoubtedly have some that others don't.

[Temp]

Welcome Tim,

 

I grew up in Brackendale Rd in Camberley. Lived there until about 1978. Was there when the M3 was built. Went to Frimley Park and then France Hill Schools. Not been back there for years as all family I moved away. I gather the concrete pipe Elephant has been moved but might still exist?

[BotusBuild]

10 hours ago, Temp said:

I gather the concrete pipe Elephant has been moved but might still exist?

It is indeed - 

 

[Tim731]

Afternoon All,

 

To Ed,

 

The Lindab guttering is steel is easier to recycle than standard plastic gutter with onger lenghts so little waste

Jaga rads, low volume high heat to make best use of the thermal store , less rads , well made and will last even the values are well made

the cat 8 means 1 cable to to multiple things instead of many cables (cat 5. sound, coax , tv, etc )

 

To Conor:

 

The cable was left over from a IT fit out for a media company along with the fittings , I work in IT so use 10GB networking as even 10GB switches are cheap today

 

To Bitpipe

 

Idea of costs :

 

Water £7 per month toilets off the rainwater havester using a pump to top up a tank in the loft

Gas average £16 per month

Gas is low due to the solar tubes heating the tank to provide around 66% heating and 80% of the water

Electric £25 per month but 30% of this is the genvex a 315 vpc

 

Build airtightness 1.34 m3/h.m2 at 50 Pa brick and block , Followed Mike holmes ideas for airtightness (Holmes on Homes ) 

Tank was 1500 liters linked to a gavity tank in the loft with a spliter so it can draw on mains if no water in the tank

[Tim731]

17 hours ago, Temp said:

Welcome Tim,

 

I grew up in Brackendale Rd in Camberley. Lived there until about 1978. Was there when the M3 was built. Went to Frimley Park and then France Hill Schools. Not been back there for years as all family I moved away. I gather the concrete pipe Elephant has been moved but might still exist?

 

On 03/10/2019 at 15:49, JSHarris said:

Welcome.

 

I went out of my way to try and ignore anything badged "eco", really on a point of principle, as it's become a bit of a marketing term that means little in terms of how any product performs, what it's whole life impact on the environment is etc.

 

Unfortunately there are some people in our village that refer to our house as "the eco house", just because it's a fairly airtight and well-insulated house that needs little energy to heat, and it annoys the living daylights out of me.  What we built was a low energy house, that has a relatively low level of embodied energy in it's construction, and which is a net CO₂ sink, rather than source, over the course of a year.  Because of the particular incentives that were on offer at the time we built it, we have no energy bills, no water bill and no sewerage charge, so the running costs are just council tax and insurance.  We also made a point of not including anything that would impact on air quality, so we have no appliances that burn fuels.  The latter is pretty critical living where we do, near the bottom of a deep valley, as we get severe, and pretty toxic, winter air pollution from those that insist on burning wood.

 

We designed our house in 2012, and since then things have moved on a bit, so there is now a greater choice of build methods, energy conservation measures, etc available.  It's also far more common to build to the sort of energy performance level that we built to now.  We've learned a lot about how a passive house behaves, and some of the key things that have a significant impact on comfort, and there are definitely one or two things that I'd change if we ever decided to build again (which I doubt we will).

 

I will like to compare your views on the Genvex as you are correct service is bad and even getting a simple answer to a question annoying I got the last Genvex from the old seller before the current people took over

[Tim731]

23 hours ago, AnonymousBosch said:

Welcome.

Here's an idea, pop up the M6, J33 and show me how to do it, please. Ta!

Ian

Hi Ian,

Second time around would do it very differently

[Tim731]

On 03/10/2019 at 15:49, JSHarris said:

Welcome.

 

I went out of my way to try and ignore anything badged "eco", really on a point of principle, as it's become a bit of a marketing term that means little in terms of how any product performs, what it's whole life impact on the environment is etc.

 

Unfortunately there are some people in our village that refer to our house as "the eco house", just because it's a fairly airtight and well-insulated house that needs little energy to heat, and it annoys the living daylights out of me.  What we built was a low energy house, that has a relatively low level of embodied energy in it's construction, and which is a net CO₂ sink, rather than source, over the course of a year.  Because of the particular incentives that were on offer at the time we built it, we have no energy bills, no water bill and no sewerage charge, so the running costs are just council tax and insurance.  We also made a point of not including anything that would impact on air quality, so we have no appliances that burn fuels.  The latter is pretty critical living where we do, near the bottom of a deep valley, as we get severe, and pretty toxic, winter air pollution from those that insist on burning wood.

 

We designed our house in 2012, and since then things have moved on a bit, so there is now a greater choice of build methods, energy conservation measures, etc available.  It's also far more common to build to the sort of energy performance level that we built to now.  We've learned a lot about how a passive house behaves, and some of the key things that have a significant impact on comfort, and there are definitely one or two things that I'd change if we ever decided to build again (which I doubt we will).

 

People refer to us as "the house with the blue windows "

[Tim731]

17 hours ago, NSS said:

Welcome Tim, and apologies if some of the previous responses appear a little dismissive or disparaging. Sounds like your property has served you well but you recognise that technologies have moved on in the intervening 11 years and there may be ways in which you can update your home to take advantage of these - whilst at the same time sharing your decade-plus experiences.

 

As you'll have noticed, people here tend to prefer the 'low-energy' descriptive rather 'eco' but please don't let such hang-ups discourage you from getting involved here. None of us have all the answers and you'll undoubtedly have some that others don't.

We tried to get the best of the sensible ideas at the time , did not go for solar electric as only 20% efficient and only had a 140,000 budget

[Tim731]

20 hours ago, ProDave said:

"conventional wisdom" is that it is cars, particularly those with internal combustion engines that are killing the planet.  But a simple fag packet calculation shows our previous house burned more litres of Kerosene in a year than my gas guzzler car  consumes of petrol.

 

Yet there is no big push to make old houses more energy efficient.  

 

Oh and road fuel is taxed to extreme, because it is bad, but house fuel is not.

Your boiler will produce more co2 than your car , UK systems modulate down rather then up , I have a 12KW system boiler to heat a 4 bedroom home

[Tim731]

6 hours ago, BotusBuild said:

It is indeed - 

 

I am not sure , I thought it was still there but do not go down this road after the council changed the roundabout to improve the flow )))

[BotusBuild]

True, that pic is from June 2018, but last time I passed by, it was still there, and it had been repainted ?

[Temp]

Google found a bit about its history here..

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/concrete-elephants-50th-birthday-trumpeted-6347851

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

5 hours ago, Tim731 said:

Your boiler will produce more co2 than your car

Not sure what car you drive but my car generates about 4.5 tonnes of CO₂ per year, my house about 2 tonnes.

(car 165g/mile and electricity 400g/kWh)

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by SteamyTea

[NSS]

34 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Not sure what car you drive but my car generates about 4.5 tonnes of CO₂ per year, my house about 2 tonnes.

(car 165g/mile and electricity 400g/kWh)

 

But that suggests you do circa 27,000 mile per year whereas the average these days is circa 10,000.