FORTHCOMING EVENTS:

21 February 2012 ~ Renewable Energy Update

Latest developments in PV, solar, PVT, wind, heat pumps and biomass.  Feed in tariffs, renewable heat incentive and grants.

See attached Flyer

30 March 2012, Herne ~ Water, Waste, Wetlands

To be held at Wildwood Woodlands Discovery Park, Herne, includes entry to Wildlife park to see the beavers and a 15 minute talk by their keeper, along with a brief introduction to wetland habitat and their conservation value by chief executive, Peter Smith.

Adults are allowed to use the drop slide if you dare!

Topics to include water use, flooding, code for sustainable homes, RW harvesting and reed bed sewage treatment.

PAST EVENTS:

Visit to Augustine House  Overview

Visit to Sheltered Housing Scheme  Overview

Published in the RICS Building Surveying Journal, January-February 2012.

Paul Mallion discusses how external insulation was used in the refurbishment of a Grade II listed building.

View ‘Room to Breathe‘

Conker Conservation are delighted to announce that it has received Passivhaus certification for Greendale Studio, the first industrial premises to be certified in the UK, built for Cooke Industries.

The building posed a considerable challenge in meeting the passivhaus criteria, due to its surface area to floor area ratio (required by planning restrictions and building usage) and by the industrial fume extract and lighting design necessary for a commercial art studio.

Other features include:

•  3m high loading door, insulated to passivhaus level, with a U value of 0.67 W/m²K.
• Triple glazed frameless picture windows to the south west elevation.
• Rammed chalk mass wall to stabilise internal temperatures.
• Wood pellet fired district heating system serving the 3 properties on the site.
• Externally the building is clad in finger jointed sweet chestnut from Kent and East Sussex.
• The roof has 5.6m² of solar thermal panels.
• 22.5m² of photovoltaics generating electricity.

A former RAF hut in Hawkinge, concealed under layers of pebbledash, asbestos and plastic cladding is being restored to its former glory with corrugated steel cladding.

The RAF hut was converted into a house many years ago, but had lost its identity.  We are helping the new owner insulate, extend and repair, using natural materials and new timber windows.

The original parts of the hut will be clad in painted corrugated steel sheeting, as original; the new parts will be in oak weatherboarding.

World War 11 architecture is rapidly disappearing from our landscape; we hope to preserve this little part for the future.

THE PASSIVHAUS DEMYSTIFIED

This one day conference  held at Hadlow College Rural Regeneration Centre on 8 December 2011  focused on the planning policy and aesthetic issues which affect all new and refurbished buildings.

Paul Mallion explained the Passivhaus standard.  Other topics covered  included the current energy framework for planning and building regulations; retrofit of existing buildings to EnerPHit standard and case studies of completed Passivhaus buildings in the UK and across Europe.  A tour of Hadlow’s Passivhaus teaching block was also included, discussing how the standard was met in that instance.

Work is nearing completion of a refurbishment of a detached 1970′s house in Guston, Dover.

The original house featured advanced innovations of the day, such as aluminium/wood double glazing; insulated cavity walls (50mm polyisocyanurate); insulated sloping roofs (25mm rockwool, building regulations at the time required 10mm); radiant electric heating in the ceilings.  We know today that these measures do not make for an energy efficient house.

Conker used the EnerPHit principles as a guide to the refurbishment, instigating the following measures:

• External wall insulation using 200mm expanded cork, finished with lime plaster
• Roofs upgraded with 50mm polyurethane between rafters, plus 200mm sheeps wool under, with vapour control layer and plasterboard
• New passivhaus certified triple glazed aluminium/wood windows from Green Steps
• New comfort ventilation system (MVHR) from Itho
• Thermal bridges and air leakage works

Dealing with thermal bridging was especially challenging due to the complex shape, roof arrangement and semi basement.  The floors were the area where only limited insulation could be installed.  In the future vacuum insulation panels (VIP’s) could become affordable for this purpose.

Held over two days (29-30 October 2011) at the National Self Build Renovation Centre.  Paul Mallion sat on the Q&A panel with TV’s favourite builder, Tommy Walsh.  Tommy impressed us with his considerable understanding of green building, historic buildings and renewables and kept the panel on their toes by playing devil’s advocate and asking probing questions.

Paul also gave presentations on the Passivhaus standard to audiences of keen potential self-builders.  Paul’s most frequently repeated answers were a) Yes, you can open the windows as much as you like in a Passivhaus.  b) Passivhauses do cost more to build than standard houses because they are so much better; saving 80% on fuel bills in perpetuity is worth the initial extra cost.

Planning permission was granted on 21 October 2011 for a replacement village hall in Outwood, Surrey. Designed by Conker with much input from the local community, the hall may be built to Passivhaus standards, dependent on funding availability.  As the hall is located within the Green Belt where there is a presumption against new development, Conker had to produce comprehensive supporting documentation to justify the application.

Proposed New Lloyd Hall

This conference was held at Hadlow College Rural Regeneration Centre, a certified Passivhaus building on 18 October 2011.

The architect and builder gave a presentation about the building.

The event was chaired by the energetic Professor Ian Swingland OBE, and included 6 speakers.

Paul Mallion explained the Passivhaus standard.  Other topics covered included the regulatory framework, passivhaus products, construction, costs and research into retrofit.

Feedback was very good – see graph attached (note speaker number 2!).

The event was over subscribed and there is a waiting list for the follow up event.

The PassivHaus launch event on Sustainable Solutions for Passive Design took place at The Building Centre, Store Street, London WC1E on Tuesday 13th September 2011.

The event attracted over 30 attendees.

It was chaired by Gary Newman of Plant Fibre Technology and speakers included:-

• Joe Wild of EcoMerchant introduced Natureplus
• Fred Mac of Solarlux 
• Martin Twamley of Steico
• David Livingstone of Panasonic
• Paul Mallion of Conker Conservation Ltd

After many years of promoting and practicing the passivhaus standard, Paul Mallion has taken the Passivhaus Institute exam and passed.

He is now recognised by the PHI and is listed on the www.passivhausplaner.eu database, one of only 3 chartered surveyors in the UK and Ireland.

Planning permission has been obtained for the installation of a ground mounted photovoltaic array for the generation of renewable electricity.

The array of 9.75kWp (kilo Watts peak) is capable of generating 8369kW per annum, offsetting 4563 kg CO₂ equivalent of grid generated electricity.

Published in Green Building Magazine summer 2011.

Paul Mallion gives a designers perspective on a passivhaus light industrial unit.

Feature

Paul Mallion has been elected Fellow of the RICS by achievement.  This was based on Paul’s contribution to the profession in regard to sustainability and energy efficiency.

It is not true that he now has to grow a beard!

Conker has been assisting a local group in saving the unique and historic Westgate Hall from demolition.  On 28 July 2011 Canterbury City Council agreed to save the building and grant a 99 year lease to the Westgate Community Trust from March 2012.  The hall will be preserved, refurbished and managed as a community centre.

Click here to see the story of how the hall was saved.

Work has recently commenced on site for a new 4 bedroom passivhaus in Faversham.  Conker managed to obtain planning permission in December 2008 for the site in a dense residential area of the town centre, which suffered from considerable overlooking.  This was partly due to a considerate and responsive design solution, partly due to the hard work by the client in liaising with the 32 neighbours, and partly due to a very positive and constructive planning department at Swale Borough Council.

As the client is a specialist in renewable energy, the scheme naturally includes solar PV, solar thermal, plus pipework underground for testing heat pumps and ground cooling systems.

The first residential passivhaus Conker ever worked on is a detached, traditional looking cottage in Chilham, near Canterbury.  The design work started in 2005, when hardly any information was available in the UK. Our client embraced the principles of Passivhaus and started work in 2007.  Being both a teacher and running a certified organic farm, means that progress has been slow, but it is now a shell with a roof.

Our client kindly opened his house to the AECB’s Pedalhaus Tour on 21 May 2011 to talk about his experiences.  He hopes to complete by Christmas 2012.

Keep up the good work!

With increasing pressure on our fuel supplies and concerns over nuclear power, we need a new electricity generation system, especially for our prolific use of electronic gadgets. We have recently heard of a new approach for low energy generation called Positive Energy Delivery Amplified Low-carbon System. This involves clockwise rotating components on a central cartridge bearing connected to a Sturmey Archer low drag generator via a linked steel plate roller bearing transmission system powering a front mounted hi-fidelty audio device.
Sceptics have said this is nothing more than PEDALS on an old bike powering a clapped out radio, we couldn’t possibly comment.

click to view system

Click here for Conker’s latest newsletter.

Paul Mallion speaks at the EBUK Conference held in London on 18 January 2011. Details

Photo courtesy of Rowland keable, possibly a worse photographer than Paul!

Click here to see Paul Mallion’s paper on Barriers To Earth Building

The sustainable refurbishment of Tyland Farmhouse has been completed and the building was officially opened by the Mayor of Maidstone and John Bernard Sunley on 10 December 2010.

Tyland Farmhouse owned by the Kent Wildlife Trust, has been converted from a derelict house into an energy efficient office.

Uniquely we have been able to externally insulate and render, as several layers of harmful sand and cement render and mesh needed to be hacked off. Steico’s www.steico.com wood fibre insulation was used in conjunction with Lime Greens’s www.lime-green.co.uk render system.

Slimlite double glazing is installed to the sash windows, in conjunction with draught stripping.

A large  portion of the roof void has been given over to a bat loft, plus swift and bat boxes have been located around the building.

An artist’s studio, which will be the UK’s first Passivhaus industrial building, has obtained a preliminary air tightness test result of 0.39 air changes per hour, comfortably inside the Passivhaus limit of 0.6. Current UK Building Regulations only require 10 ach.

Results such as these start with meticulous and time consuming detailing at the drawing board, which then need to be followed up with careful attention on site by the main contractor and all sub contractors. Electricians and plumbers need to be watched in particular as they can be ‘colander cowboys’.

This years conference was held at the new WISE building at CAT, Machynlleth, Wales.  The conference consisted of formal AECB matters, excellent seminars on a variety of topics, a keynote speech by George Monbiot, plus a 21^st birthday party for the association.

The venue added to the interest, Pat Borer the architect took guided tours.  A key feature of the new building is the auditorium consisting of 7.2m high rammed earth walls.

There was a great atmosphere as old acquaintances were renewed, but George Monbiot’s speech brought us all back to earth with a grim note of reality, as he described the missed opportunities of the Copenhagen Summit.

I found it truly sad to see a tireless campaigner on sustainability and energy reform feel hopeless about the future.  If only he could feed off the energy and enthusiasm present among the CAT and AECB members, it certainly recharged my batteries.

The WISE auditorium has some similarities with the Pines Calyx, St Margaret’s Bay, which consists of two roundels of rammed chalk.  Both buildings have a great feeling of tranquillity, good day-lighting, thermal comfort, and interesting acoustics.  Some AECB members are considering the Calyx for the 2011 conference!

Conker Conservation obtained Listed Building consent and specified and tendered the work to The Mariner’s Tea Rooms in Rye .  The work carried out by contractor, R Flisher Ltd has been ‘Highly Commended’ in the Townscape Awards 2010 for the meticulous repair and redecorations’.

A self-build commences in High Halden of an elliptical two storey straw bale house.

Larsen trusses will support the main roof loads, with straw bale infil for insulation.  An internal tower of cob provides thermal mass.

A classroom, kitchen and mess room largely self-built by Rangers and volunteers from The Canterbury Oast Trust was recently opened by the Mayor of Ashford. The building provides a base for the Rangers, who work all year round to maintain the woodland.

The classroom was constructed using straw bales with an oak tree trunk supporting the apex of the roof, which is covered with cedar shingles.  A variety of other methods of construction were used including chord wood laid in clay mortar, woven willow panels and a timber frame covered in waney-edge boards cut from trees felled on site.

Conker Conservation designed the building, assisted in the straw bale training and provided guidance and advice throughout the construction.

The Canterbury Oast Trust www.c-o-t.org.uk is a registered charity which provides long term 24-hour care in family-style homes for adults with learning and physical disabilities in Kent and East Sussex. The Trust also runs a programme of personal development, skills training and work experience which brings residents into contact with the general public, helping to break down barriers and foster a greater understanding of disability.

Passivhaus is regularly in the news at the moment, being the most advanced energy standard in the world.  A small number of Passivhaus projects have been completed in the UK in the last 6 months, we believe this is the first light industrial building to go through certification.

A unique feature designed by the Engineer S C Green www.scgreen.co.uk in conjunction with fabricator Eco Frame Systems Ltd www.ecoframesystems.com is a timber portal frame without tie beams, using only I-beams.  This allows a vast open space for the artist’s works, which can measure 4 m high.

This is our first project to go through the Passivhaus certification process despite working towards the standard since 2004, and undertaking AECB training.

We have encountered many problems which simply do not surface in house design, but we hope that with the help of Warm Ltd www.peterwarm.co.uk we will get through the process, with of course the tireless support of our client, without such pioneers this country would be even further behind our continental colleagues.

The Sustainable Energy Academy (SEA) promotes education and action to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings and communities.  It networks with people and organisations at local level to achieve national impact.

SEA are currently spearheading Old Home SuperHome – an ongoing programme to transform the existing housing stock in the UK, with the ultimate aim of reducing domestic carbon emissions by 60%. The scheme is building and promoting a network of exemplar, energy-efficient old dwellings, which will be publicly accessible to nearly everyone in the country.

One of Conkers refurbishment projects in Faversham, a Victorian house located within a Conservation Area was assessed for the ‘Old Home, Super Home’ scheme.  The energy performance assessment showed ‘before (unrenovated condition)’ CO2 emissions of 11.9 tonnes per year and ‘after’ of 4.7 tonnes per year.  This gives a reduction of 60%, which is the minimum reduction required to participate, so the property became the 33^rd house in the country in the scheme.  There has already been a couple of open days when people could come and see what has been done to the property.

The Pines Calyx was handed over in October 2006, but with temporary rooflights due to the lack of suitable products to the Passivhaus Standard.  (The Calyx was built to the principles – U values for opaque elements, glazing and thermal bridges, MVHR, lighting and airtightness from conception in 2003).

New quad-glazed roof domes were supplied by Whitesales Ltd/National Domelight Co www.nationaldomelightcompany.co.uk.  The upstands were fitted with additional insulation on site, then clad with zinc by Barry Shotton www.leadroofing.biz.  The units are openable electronically and will be wired in to the BEMS systems.

Conker Conservation Ltd are working on designs for a Passivhaus Standard primary school in Kent.  Colliers Green School is a very successful rural school, with very forward thinking Head, staff and governors.  They were dismayed at the apathy displayed by conventional designers when given the brief for an ultra-low energy building.  No so at Conker, we have researched primary school design in the UK and found many exemplary buildings completed in the last 10 years.

Regrettably, these are dwarfed by the number of average buildings with poor energy performance, almost none meet the DECC guidelines for electricity consumption.

A passivhaus school recently completed in Redberg, near Frankfurt has given us confidence that we can achieve the standard.  Fund raising is currently underway.

When the roof on this delightful cottage in Margate needed refurbishment and thermal upgrading, it was timely that the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings (spab.org.uk) had their new publication ‘Peg tiles in South-East England, Regional Advice Note 1’ out for consultation. We took the opportunity to visit SPAB’s HQ to attend the presentation by the author Ray Harrison.

The new guidance is available from the SPAB bookshop.

One of the attractions of Kent peg tiles is the variation in colour and texture which cannot be matched by any modern tile. This is due to the clay from which they were made as well as the primitive firing techniques, which often resulted in many part-fired and distorted tiles.

Great care was taken by the contractor S and T Fullers of Faversham, to blend new tiles with the old, and to maintain the undulated roofline despite the strengthening works and new battens.

Conker win the Special Award for Sustainability, Residential Category in the Kent Design Awards 2009/10.

Click here to see  Award Project

The Award was for the Green House, Shepherdswell,  near Dover, which was recognised by the judges as being the first house in Kent designed to Passivhaus principles, using the PassivHaus Planning Package 2004 software.  Conker beat off stiff competition for the award, including a project featured on Grand Designs.  The judging panel recognised that embarking on a passivhaus design in 2007 was a brave move by the client, when products and experience in the UK were still in their infancy.  They were also impressed by the fact the high thermal performance was achieved using conventional UK methods, such as cavity wall and timber frame, rather than costly specialist systems.

Conker used experience gained on the Pines Calyx , designed in 2004/2005 to Passivhaus principles, to detail the thermal junctions, windows and doors.  We have since refined these into a library of passivhaus details for cavity walls, timber frame, solid walls, in both new build and retrofit.

Conker win the award for ‘Residential Development’.

Click to see  Award Project

The Passivehouse 2009 Symposium and Construction Fair was held in Brussels on 11^th to 13^th September.

Organised by the Belgian Passiefhuis-Platform vzw (PHP), an advisory body similar to the BRE who promote passivhouse design in the Dutch speaking regions of Belgium.

The event brought together architects, consultants and builders from France, Belgium, Holland and Germany and a handful from the UK, to review the latest developments in Passivhaus (Ph).

Topics covered included PH schools, ventilation strategies, refurbishment to PH standard, plus demonstration and discussion of current PH projects in the Benelux region.

Most presentations were in Dutch or French with English translation, and most exhibitors spoke reasonable English, certainly better than our French!!

A wide variety of products and services were displayed at the fair, such as windows, insulation, ventilation systems, timber framing systems, insulation blocks, wood stoves, and a surprising number of designers.

One architect we spoke to has completed 35 passivehouses since 2003, indicating that the Belgians are well ahead of the UK in this respect.  They are also consistently achieving airtightness of 0.6 to 0.3³/m²hr in their passivehauses, something we are still working on.

This event strengthens our resolve to design more buildings to the PH standard, particularly if we can achieve the 5-11% extra-over cost reported in Belgium.

In June 2009, Paul Mallion becomes the first surveyor in Kent to receive his Certificate of Completion for the AECB Carbonlite PassivHaus Planning Training.

Published in Green Building Magazine Vol 18 No 3 – Paul Mallion explains why timbrel vaulting could enjoy a re-emergence.

View article

Conker’s article on the use of cork insulation on two projects, one being Friends of the Earths new roof terrace.

View cork article

A house we designed for London contractor/developer Hillman & Sons was the National Silver Winner for Small Residential Projects of the Green Apple Awards in 2006.

The London Borough of Lewisham recommended some form of ‘eco’ building after they were unimpressed by the original designers proposals.  The purchasers took the initiative to enter the building for the award, being enthusiastic and dedicated to the green ethos.

We have worked with Hillman and Sons for many years, including a Thunderbird’s style mobile pond over a subterranean swimming pool complete with adjacent car lift!