Saw this in a magazine article about properties being built on a slope:
I was planning / thinking that the rear courtyard would have a vertical wall, but like this idea of planted terrace steps.
It would also push the south facing courtyard wall back a bit and so let in more light to the lounge and courtyard.
“Impress Your Guests: 8 Tips for Gracious Guest Rooms”
An assortment of books. – nice idea
A folding luggage stand. – not so sure
http://blog.emap.com/footprint/2011/08/08/accoya-used-to-build-bridge-in-the-netherlands/
I’ve since learnt that (unless it’s changed and the info is out of date or wrong) that Accoya wood is grown in NZ & treated in the Netherlands. So the transport carbon footprint isn’t great. It’s then consequently expensive.
http://www.gowercroft.co.uk/2013/03/what-is-accoya-timber/
“The downside to this material is that while the trees are grown in New Zealand and the acetylisation process occurs in The Netherlands, it will always be expensive. The raw timber costs three times as much as our standard hardwoods.”
The geographic growing and processing isn’t mentioned on the Accoya website that does cover a lot of other good environmental aspects of Accoya:
The biomimicry-based technology imitates the effect of fur on polar bears, the individual hairs on the polar bear being hollow and guiding sunlight directly to the skin. As the polar bear’s skin is black, it is able to absorb light efficiently, and convert it into heat which it transfers to the body.
http://www.building4change.com/page.jsp?id=1339
External wall insulation system (EWIS) specialist Sto has brought its StoSolar solid wall heating system concept from Germany to the UK market.
The system incorporates a translucent glass render finish covering tiny capillaries that guide sunlight to a black absorbent layer, which converts solar to thermal energy. The masonry stores this heat and releases it back into the building as radiant heat, reducing the internal heating requirement.
Low sun means high heat
The amount of heat generated by the system depends on the angle of the sun. In summer, when the sun is high in the sky, less radiant energy is absorbed by the capillaries, so the heat generated is greatly reduced. In the winter, the low angle leads to the maximum amount of sunshine being transmitted to the absorbent layer ensuring that most heat is produced during the cold months.
StoSolar integrates into a Sto EWIS and is suitable for new and existing buildings when fixed to a solid wall that is not internally insulated. It will generally use 10-30 percent of a façade’s insulating surface area and be delivered to the construction site as prefabricated units to be incorporated into an external wall system.
From http://www.building4change.com/page.jsp?id=1305
The tariff for a small domestic solar installation will be 16p per kilowatt hour, down from 21p, and will decrease on a three-month basis thereafter, with pauses if the market slows. All tariffs will continue to be index-linked in line with the retail price index (RPI) and the export tariff will be increased from 3.2p to 4.5p. The new tariffs are expected to give a return on investment (ROIs) of more than 6 percent for most installations, and up to 8 percent for the larger bands.
The scheme lifetime will be reduced from 25 years to 20 years for new solar installations.
FIT changes
OK, so this site is my notes, thoughts etc. as I scoop up ideas, inspiration etc. for the house project.
Spotted this and had to add it.
Wouldn’t this be great in at least one bathroom or over the downstairs loo sink ?
– maybe put up an empty picture frame with the text painted on the wall ?
As an alternative to a corner window for the top floor home office, a different idea, that could make the top half of the office floor look as if it’s lighter, but it floating, is a side slot:
This idea could be extended / used on all 3 floors of the building or just the top office.
– if used on all 3, the slot could be the longest / deepest on the top office floor.
A corner slot would mean less glass, which means better insulation (walls are better than windows for insulation) and lower cost.
(The pictures are from houzz.com.)
There is an idea to reduce the bulk / the massing of the top floor by putting a corner window on the NE corner.
So I’ve had a look at corner windows and found these on houzz.com
In the above building the corner window isn’t floor to ceiling and still seems to massively reduce the impact there would be if there was a solid corner.
A similar corner window would still allow the current block top floor where there isn’t a roof “cap” that extends beyond the walls.
Viewed from inside, this corner window isn’t floor to ceiling. Neither is the image above.
Both seem to work well.
Looking at another Houzz.com corner window gallery >>
Again, the window isn’t floor to ceiling, but close !
On the top floor this could then have a column, before a (from inside) a, to the floor door that opens out onto the terrace.
Having supporting columns at or near the corner seems to work well too !
Corner columns can also be fine.
Look at this corner from the outside and inside (season shift):
and this corner window, with a corner frame piece on, what looks like an office building.
This image is interesting, not only for the corner window, but also for the lounge where there could be a problem getting triple glazing to the height, so a top window band strip might be a solution.
Treehugger.com had an article on this prototype system that combines hydroponics and a fish farm into one unit for all year round veggies and a few fish.
The prototype Globe/Hedron “is a bamboo greenhouse designed to organically grow fish and vegetables on top of generic flat roofs. The design is optimized for aquaponic farming techniques: the fish’s water nourishes the plants and plants clean the water for the fish,” according to designer Antonio.
I put a post on greenbuildingforum.co.uk and the consistent reply is that it’s more expensive than well used and well know Leca, which is usually used with a breathable Limecrete floor. I’m not sure if it’d work / work as well under a non breathing floor.
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/forum114/comments.php?DiscussionID=9113&page=1#Comment_147104
I was at a Green Building show / expo / day at the Eden Project last week and there was a talk by a German sounding chap, who is part of the UK Epoc Europe Ltd team promoting / pushing their TECHNOpor (Recycled Foamed Glass).
The key points seemed to be:
I’ve found 2 UK Websites related to this:
The German site for TECHNOpor is http://www.technopor.com/English/Granulat/
The Swiss site has a great idea of using bags for when you use the Recycled Foam Glass to insulate a wall. Given that there will be 2 retaining walls, this could be great.
From www.misapor.ch:
