2nd March 2011

Ground floor structure completed. This concists of pre cast concrete 'I' beams with polystyrene blocks laid between. The cavity in the external wall will be filled with mineral wool insulation.

This shows the shape of the polystyrene blocks. They are designed to wrap underneath the concrete beams thus providing continuity of insulation.

3rd February 2011

Foundations in and blockwork up to ground floor slab level

10 December 2010

View of the new house from the rear.

 The house has been designed to suit a 45 degree 'dog leg' plot. The Client had a strict budget and provided a brief with regard to layout etc.

The Client was happy to go along with the concept of a very low energy house provided that it didn't inflate the cost. The house had to be brought in at no more than it would do if designed to basic Building Regulations standard.

From the start I was informed by the excellent blog in the Building magazine relating to the Denby Dale House http://www.building.co.uk/passivhaus-diaries-what-the-denby-dale-home-costs/3141749.article posted by Bill Butcher of the Green Building Store http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/.

This really is a most useful source of theory and practice of building a traditional house as a low energy house.

The Denby Dale house is a certified Passivhaus http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/ which 9 Ashford Park is not going to be. To be a certified Passivhaus the design and the construction has to meet certain criteria and some of the components used in its construction need to be certified.

To quote the BRE (Building Research Establishment):

PassivHaus dwellings:

• are the worlds leading standard in energy efficient construction
• are designed and built using a step-by-step approach
• use efficient components and a whole house ventilation system to achieve exceptionally low running costs
• are comfortable, healthy and sustainable

PassivHaus dwellings typically achieve an energy saving of 90% compared to existing housing

The intention with 9 Ashford Park is to achieve all of this but without certification which has a cost attached to it.  It will not be possible to claim that this is a Passivhaus house but it will be a LOW ENERGY USE HOUSE.

Remediation of Contaminated Soil

The soil on the site has been contaminated by years and years of being adjacent to a chimey stack from an 18th/19th century lead smelting plant now long since gone. 600mm of soil will be removed, a membrane will be laid down and new uncontaminated soil will be placed over the membrane.


The initial site strip  has been completed and the contaminated soil taken to a licenced landfill site. Building works will start in the New Year.

9 Ashford Park Pontesbury Shropshire
A LOW ENERGY HOUSE

9 Ashford Park  is the site of a new house to be built for Mr and Mrs Bryan Henshall. The plan is to create a traditional house on an existing housing estate on a plot which wasn't built on when the housing estate was developed in the 1960s.

The new house is to be a low energy house with no primary heating installation. The walls, roof and ground floors will be so well insulated that the only heating required will be generated by the occupation of the house using an installation which extracts air, takes the heat from the air and transfers the heat into the fresh air being brought into the house by the extraction of the old air.

This system is called mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR).

The design process has been partly informed by the series of blogs in the Building magazine  about a house called 'The Denby Dale house' posted by Bill Butcher from The Green Building Shop.

The house will have 200mm mineral glass wool insulation in the walls; 135 Kingspan in the roof and 300mm polystyrene beneath the floor slab. Windows will be triple glazed.

Heating of the domestic hot water will be assisted with solar thermal panels backed up with electric immersion heater. The hot water storage cylinder will be the biggest that will fit in the cupboard set aside for it and there will be a coil within the cylinder to provide heat to the heater battery on the supply side of the MVHR. The heater battery will also have an electrical element for times when the water temperature drops.