Clearview National December 2015 - Issue 169 | Page 38

DOORS&WINDOWS

An Eco-Challenge
»»Two years ago, Jo and Andy
Thompson were living in social housing at
Unity Gardens, Long Sutton, Lincolnshire
- one of the UK’s first zero-carbon housing
developments.
They had resigned themselves to being
lifelong renters, having no spare cash for a
deposit. Then one day, the dream of owning
their own home became more of a reality.
Jo’s mother moved into a semi-detached
house in South Lincolnshire and was sitting
outside one day wondering how she would
look after the huge garden as she got older.
Jo and Andy brought some of the garden
to build their own house and employed the
help of local Architect Dr Jerry Harrall, a
multi award winning designer of eco-friendly
developments.
“Jerry had designed our new home and
submitted the plans – keeping it simple to
avoid any hold ups.” Andy commented.
Jerry reflects on the planning process: “The
first challenge came after submitting the plans
to South Holland District Council. The
planners required a consensus as to whether to
support the application, due to the building
being classed as ‘modern architecture.’ Luckily,

38 » dec 2015 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M

however, the same local authority’s Building
Control team had a completely opposite
approach and championed the designs from
the onset.
“The issues arose as they were focusing
on what wasn’t in the building as opposed
to what was. The house has no foundations,
being simply built on a garage floor slab – and
has no cavity walls, no plasterboard and no
mechanical ventilation.”
It took 12 months from submitting the
plans to beginning the build. Andy continues:
“In March 2014, we moved into a caravan onsite and building began.
“Due to the differences in the way the
building was designed, tradespeople had to
take a new approach to the way they worked.
Bricklayers, for example, weren’t required to
lay bricks or leave cavities in the wall. Our
main objective was to build an eco-friendly
home with no utility bills.”
Jerry explains: “The weakest area of a house
is traditionally the windows, as this is where
most of the heat is lost. Most standard house
builders will usually get U-values of around
1.7W/m2K - our aim was to get below 1.0W/
m2K.”

Jo says: “We hadn’t heard of Liniar
windows before, but our architect
recommended them as he had used them in
previous projects.
“We found a local Liniar installer, Bob
Mills and he ordered Liniar EnergyPlus
six-chamber profile windows with plastic
composite spacer bar, triple glazing, and low
emissivity film on the inside and outside to
achieve a U-value of 0.8W/m2K.”
Modern living
“FranklyBee represents modern living,”
claims Andy, “and we’re delighted that
the building is ‘Energy Positive’ by 40% meaning that it generates 40% more energy
that it uses. Putting that into numbers, our
house generates around 5,000 kWh of energy
a year, but we only use around 3,000 kWh.
“Overall, the build went smoothly from
start to finish. It was constructed exactly as
it was designed, and best of all, we received
our first energy ‘bill’ the other day – as we’d
hoped, it was actually a cheque!”

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