Construction starts....Days 1-2

Almost a year after taking posession of the site, our builder and crew arrive last Friday to start setting out. Over the weekend an excavator is delivered, and by the end of today - Tuesday -the foundation trenches have been dug and reinforced concrete footings laid. This marks a rapid start to a seemingly long design and planning process!It is also a year since we joined the Association for Environment Conscious Builders, a voluntary organisation pressing for higher sustainability standards in the design, building and operation of new buildings. A particular focus of the AECB is to push for higher standards of energy efficiency in new and exisiting buildings, now also a priority for the UK Government to be implemented through its Code fo Sustainable Homes.
As part of our design brief the house has been specified to meet the AECB's low energy 'Silver Standard' which calls for a 70% redution in energy use over a modern home built to current regulations, and is roughly equivalent to CSH Level 4. This is to be achieved through designing in high levels of insulation and airtightness, and considering the orientation of the building on the site to maximise solar gain in winter whilst avoiding the possiblity of overheating in summer. In the coming months we will describe in more detail how these aspects will be implemented.