beast

Can’t believe it’s been 9 months since I’ve updated the blog – time is flying! We’ve had bitterly cold ‘Beast from the East’ in February and the hottest summer since 1976 (or so Nick Grant says). We finished off timber cladding on the north side of the house and been focusing our efforts on the landscaping: planting new native hedging and soft fruits, building a chicken run and establishing a bit of a lawn. It’s been great to be able to spend time outside, BBQs, parties and just enjoying life. So how has the house coped with these weather extremes? Pleased to say, remarkably well. Of course this statement could be subjective, but the monitoring results (graphs below) confirmed that the house has a very good level of resilience built-in. We’ve been particularly impressed with the comfort during the heatwave, when the internal temperatures peaked at 24C, whilst the outside was 28C. PHPP indicated zero overheating (internal temperatures over 25C), but it was great to confirm this in reality.

With no gas or heating bills we were keen to see what our electricity consumption would be – the first annual statement from the energy supplier confirmed 4,500kWh or approximately 45kWh/m2 – this included all electric appliances, lighting, air source heat pump etc.

We entered the project for Passivhaus Trust Awards and we’re absolutely delighted that we’ve won the Small Projects category against a very stiff competition! Lloyd Alter predicted the winners on Treehugger back in July – amazing prophecy skills. It was fascinating to hear stories of the other shortlisted projects, all very different in character, style, budget and circumstance. More on this is on the Passivhaus Trust website.

We are going to open our home on Saturday 10th November as part of the International Passivhaus Open Days, feel free to book a visit via this website or look at other passivhaus projects in your area on PHT website.

If you’re interested in a more in-depth article covering detailed technical aspects of the house (thanks Kate & Lenny!), head to Issue 27 of Passive House Plus magazine.