Meters, 22/12/10 By Ruairi Kay

Not much to report here other than the new electric and water meters have been installed and the internal decoration is being finished off, still waiting for the windows to arrive though..... In order to fulfil the monitoring requirements of the project we need to install new electric, gas and water meters with a pulse output. Normally the various utility companies would be engaged to replace the existing meters. As utility companies are notoriously difficult to [...]

Baxi Ecogen and Building Control, 09/12/10 By Ruairi Kay

British Gas were onsite today installing the Baxi Ecogen Micro-CHP and new wet radiator system. CHP (combined heat and power or cogeneration) is the process of producing both electricity and useful heat from one source. Large scale CHP has been around for some time, but reliable micro domestic models are only starting to become available. The Ecogen unit produces an output of 1kW of electricity while providing 6kW of heat via a free [...]

Blog 6: Client Visit 25/11/11, by Ruairi Kay

Today we were joined by client representatives from Crawley Homes and Crawley Council for a tour of our 4 retrofit projects.  Things are progressing well at St Joan Close. The external wall insulation is all up and has had a base coat of silicon render plus mesh. We have had to leave the insulation off the windows reveals, as well as the finish coat, until the new windows arrive. Ideally the windows should go in before [...]

Blog 5: External Wall Insulation Starts, 12/11/10 by Ruairi Kay

This week’s site visit to Crawley also involved a trip to the other 3 Retrofit  For the Future projects we are undertaking with Crawley Homes and Wates Living Space, see separate blog posts for more info.  At St Joan Close it was nice to see some of the airtightness problems highlighted in the last blog post put right. 

Sealing the electrical penetrations at first floor ceiling and wall to [...]

Blog 4: Cost Review and Site Visit, 03/11/10 by Ruairi Kay

Today we had our monthly client and design team meeting for the project, held in addition to our weekly meeting. The main issue on the agenda was project budget! Since our original budget estimate and submission to the Technology Strategy board in last 2009  there has been an increase in the project costs. This is attributed to a number of factors: increase in material costs, i.e. Spacetherm aerogel that has [...]

Blog 3: Airtightness Strategy and on Site Workshop 12/10/10 by Ruairi Kay

Today Ecological Building Systems joined us on site to hold an airtightness workshop with the whole construction team. Airtightness is a very important element of our whole house retrofit strategy. Once we have addressed the issue of heat loss by conduction via insulation to walls, floor, roof and triple glazed windows, the next big contributor to heat loss is via uncontrolled [...]

Blog 2: Sub-contractor co-ordination meeting 05/10/10 by Dan Jenkins

ECD, Wates and Crawley homes met with Sub-contractors from Solar Technologies (PV), Envirovent (MVHR) and Wattbox (Energy Monitoring) on Friday morning to coordinate ducting and cabling. A meeting was held in the loft space to discuss the spatial requirements of the PV inverter and the MVHR heat exchanger. Guy Henderson from Wates came armed with his coloured marker pens to draw the cable and duct run [...]

Blog 1: Introduction, 29/09/10 by Dan Jenkins

10 St. Joan Close, one of four retrofit schemes ECD Architects are carrying out for Crawley Homes in Crawley, East Sussex, started on site the 6th September.  Due for completion at the beginning of December, the existing residents are looking forward to celebrating Christmas in their ‘new’ energy efficient home.
ECD, Crawley Homes and contractor Wates have worked closely with the residents throughout the design period to [...]