The Natural Home – Ecobuilding Consultancy

It was a while ago, that I met up with Adam & Sarah from The Natural Home, Ecobuilding Consultancy.

It was great to get input from a team that don’t have a vested interest with a particular main project supplier, such as the architects or builders.

Amongst their many comments and recommendations:

  • If you find a contractor you trust, they’d recommend their employment under a ‘prime cost’ (also know as ‘cost-plus’) contract. This means the contractor charges for the total price of buying goods, materials and components, of using or hiring plant and of employing labour, in order to delivery the construction project plus a management fee.
    Their are apparently a broad range of contracts available and they could advice / assist with this.
  • Adam pointed out that the distance from the proposed house to the garage at the front may need advance consideration in relation to the surface water run-off  from the building and soak-away. This / these have to be at least 5 meters from the building, so may need to go beneath the garage.
    Adam recommended a permeability test to ensure a soak-away can accommodate the volume of discharge.
  • Current building re-use. As clearing the current building will give a large amount of aggregate, Adam suggested that it might be possible to crush and use some of this in the concrete mix for retaining wall sections.