A Good Life

Time 2020-11-06 08:03:45

Web Name: A Good Life

WebSite: http://www.post-carbon-living.com

ID:106619

Keywords:

Good,Life,

Description:

We are pragamatists, not dreamers. When we asked what does the future hold? we hit the books. Our conclusion? Our civilisation is growing infinitely within the confines of a finite planet. So in 2008 Mark co-founded a Transition initiative to promote peaceful 'transition' to a steady-state economy. It was evidence-based and practical. The focus was on re-localisation at a community level. To do anything else would only produce dystopia. Today in 2017 that conclusion is as presceint as ever. Individual communities people may wish to transition and adapt - but some national Governments seem unwilling. Whilst Europe, as a whole, made moves in the right direction, Britain and America lurched to the opposite extreme: nationalism. Nationalism is the delusion that the people on your patch of mud are special and can over-come the rules of physics through will power alone. So whilst individuals communities, can get their houses in order, our attention is drawn to the international stage. Nobody pretended this transition would be easy nor did we imagine we could create utopia. We did, however, wish to avoid the conflict and resource nationalism that was our greatest fear. Do we wish to propel our children into a world where man is pitted against man for what is left of this planet's resources? No. There is enough for all if we are willing to change. So whilst you may wish to come share our vision of a future home we make no apologies for addressing the problem holistically. People Nations must work together to bring about change and avoid conflict. It is that, or there is no future. Welcome to our life: after fossil fuels. Is their life after fossil fuels? Yes, plenty. Please follow us on our Blog, on Facebook, on Twitter and on YouTube for the latest news, views updates. This post-carbon life is a pleasure, not a chore. We answered the questions we set ourselves and you are welcome to inspect the results in our very own future home: a post-carbon home, a Superhome . A home with a 90% lower carbon footprint. 80% of all the homes we will be living in by 2050 are already standing today. Most of us are going to have to modernise what we already live in. More than that - our homes are more than just machines with carbon footprints: the way we live, our economy and how our communities work also counts. Hence some smart thinking is required. Holistic thinking; we developed our Ten Steps as guidance through the project. It lists everything you can do from changing your lightbulbs to re-building your local community. Superhome59 is a five bedroom family home in Buckinghamshire, UK. The objectives of this retrofit were multiple: firstly, massively reduce our carbon footprint; secondly, reduce the amount of space and hot water heating required; thirdly, reduce the amount of electricity we needed; fourthly, provide space to grow our own food; finally, reduce our water consumption. This was less of a project and more a program of works designed to modernise this old home as subtley as possible. Not so much an eco-refit , more a modernisation. We took a typical old home and future-proofed it. Come on in and see what we did... Superhome 59 is open to the public. In the last few years we have had visits from the local Council, from local social housing managers and even from a Member of the European Parliament. You can see what they saw and learn how to get your little slice of the post-carbon pie. There is no entry fee. This is not a show home. There will be no people with suits to sell you anything. The approach is relaxed. You are just visiting a home that has benefitted from a few extra home-improvements. If you are looking at maybe extra loft insulation, solar thermal hot water, photovoltaics or a fancy biomass boiler then Superhome 59 has it all. You can come and kick the tyres. Try before you buy. You can visit Superhome 59 whenever you want with some prior notice. To let us know and to book your place go to: www.superhomes.org.uk/59. Max of five people per tour. Tours last 50 minutes. How to find us (with bus route info): View Larger Map This is not our first attempt to retrofit a home. Prior to the commencement of the current phase of work on Post Carbon Homes there was an earlier experiment on a home some three miles to the south of our new location in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK. We too everything we learnt onto the current Post-Carbon Home when we moved location in May 2008. If you would like to learn more about this home please click here. was purchased in 2008 and we moved in in May of that year. The house is quite average in many respects but we chose it for a couple of important features: A large Double Garage A large South-Facing Roof This was one home that had considerable room for improvement. Since it was built in the mid-1980's the previous occupants had performed some cosmetic modernisation on the interior but had, otherwise, made few practical improvements. When we moved in we found the following horrors: To the previous owner's credit they had replaced the original single-glazed window units with White PVC Double Glazing - but that was about it. So we inheritted a house in fairly average condition for its age. It reflected most people's priorities over the last thirty years. Energy was cheap and Climate Change was just a theory. (As an example the ceilings had been punctured to install recessed ceiling lights. A very fashionable idea at one time but a nightmare for anyone trying to make a house air-tight to modern building standards.) We obviously had a lot of work to do. It was an ideal opportunity to demonstrate some best practice for the modern household and the informed DIYer. The biggest challenge for us was to positively engage sympathy from our Local Planning Authority. The House is in a Conservation Area and Smoke Control Zone. Although this will not impact most of the basic changes to the internal systems, it did mean Planning Permission ( /or careful product selection) was required for: Before we bought the property we had already made an informal approach to the local Planning Authority to ascertain their attitudes to Solar Panels. Good news - they were sympathetic and stated that they were unlikely to raise any objection. However later enquiries about lists of locally approved Biomass Boilers with the Air Quality Officer met with a less-than-useful response. Those were interesting times. On the flip side we did have an interesting advantage - as the property was of brick flint construction the walls were several cm thicker than other houses of that era. The Attic: It is enough to make you want to run away screaming. What you see is what you get. Less than 100mm of Mineral Wool Insulation between the joists [picture 1]. The entire area was lit by one 40w tungsten filament light bulb that had been broken so there was broken glass everywhere. The ceiling has been punctured in no less that seven locations as the traditional ceiling roses had been replaced by recessed ceiling lights. The recessed lights are not that useful in distributing the light around and make it a little challenging getting energy saving lightbulbs or LEDs that fit the recess. What is more the ceiling in no longer air-tight. Air can leak directly through the light fittings and into the attic above. You will also see above the Hot Water [picture 2] and Heating Header Tanks [picture 3]. They were not insulated - well, not properly. The 50 gallon tank actually had some mineral wool just floating on the top of the water surface. Oh yes, and we are not counting the seven Bees Nests under the rafters. in a museum. Have a look at those heating controls [picture 2]. The previous owners had had them just switched ON all the time. No wonder really. Most of the heat was lost on the way from Boiler to Hot Water Tanks through uninsulated Pipes running the length of the Attic space. The Domestic Hot Water Cylinder (DHWC) [picture 3] had rigid foam layer of insulation. The DHWC has been replaced in 2003 for reasons unknown. Not a single pipe in this Airing Cupboard had any Insulation on it. The Cupboard remained a good way of cooking your laundry not airing it. Whilst we are on the topic of heating controls - this was the original 1980s Thermostat [picture 7] still there in 2008. Yes it was ancient but this was the least of our problems. Now lets turn our attention to all those Tungsten Filament Light Bulb Spots [pictures 8 9]. There were fifteen R63 spots and nine R80 spots. Some didn't work but that was OK because the previous occupants had left a large bag of spares in the Garage. Obviously they had needed them! Within our first two weeks in the house two more bulbs failed. That is one a week. Talk about throwing good money after bad. We did find one energy saving lightbulb at the house - it was fitted inside the outside light next to the front door. Maybe if the money spent fitting recessed lights had been spent on energy savers the previous owners may have saved themselves some money. OK - enough bewilderment. In the summer of 2008 we took control and the retrofit Project started. Read about it below. ourselves. Later this was discarded as the tank was replaced when the solar panels were fitted. added 200mm (2 layers of 100mm) on top of existing mineral wool. Purchased about 100m2 of sheeps wool (100mm deep) which cost us 999. additional 618 was required for tools, wood and boarding gave us the storage space and access for future solar panel boiler work via attic. Rollover Garage Door fitted by SWR. Not an essential item but replaced the broken original. New roll-up door has a foam interior sandwiched between aluminium and plastic exterior walls. Helps keep the warmth inside the fabric of the building as the boiler is in the garage. It works too. High embodied energy but gave us good security. ourselves but a big waste of money - later replaced by mains-powered versions that were much better ourselves. We overspent on this due to an attempt to use double-sided sticky tape rather than wallpaper paste. by local electrician (ceiling units) ourselves (undercupboard units). Supplied by Wattlite Lightbulbs Direct. by Green Systems UK Ltd. Cost was 15,590 - 1500 Low Carbon Building Program Grant = 14,090 tree surgeon. These were mostly 18ft leylandiis that screened the home from the south blocking out the sun all year round. The house is far warmer in winter now. Replaced with fruit trees that will not shade the house even when fully mature and lose their leaves in Autumn. by a local plumber. The originals had all rusted through so we opted for slightly larger units. Total ignores LCBP grant funding that no longer exists. Note that the costs above exclude a lot of incidental expenses such as tools and materials. In December 2010 we drew a line under the project costs and considered the work complete. This does not mean that everything is finished . Continual home improvements are underway. For example all the lightbulbs were finally replaced by LEDs in 2013, the front doors was insulated internally in 2012 and a new build Conservatory was added in 2014/2015. These are now treated as running costs or normal home improvements. Cost Breakdown The total project cost looks quite horrendous but matters are not as simple as they first appear. The above list actually excludes things such as a new fitted kitchen and security system because they had no bearing on the nature of the 'eco-retrofit'. This means they didn't contribute materially in either saving water, energy or carbon nor did they increase our capacity to grow our own food. A more accurate breakdown is thus (figures are now net of LCBP grants): Type of expenditure Amount spent overall There is a lengthy appraisal of this projects costs and benefits over on our blog. Rather than bore you with the details here we recommend that you take some time to browse through Was it Worth it? Part One and Part Two.

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