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  • HPH270 : What is the WELL Building Standard? – with Olga Turner Baker from Ekkist

    HPH270 : What is the WELL Building Standard? – with Olga Turner Baker from Ekkist

    Olga Turner Baker describes the WELL Building Standard and explains how the principles can be applied to improve health and well-being on individual projects.

    Interview with Olga Turner Baker

    Olga is a chartered surveyor by training. She first came across the WELL Building Standard back in 2016, and was surprised to find it wasn’t being adopted more widely in the UK. She quickly became passionate about it and started her own business, Ekkist, to specialise in design-led buildings, with a specific focus on health and well-being within.

    Ori House

    The WELL Building Standard is based on medical research

    Launching in the United States in 2014, the WELL Building Standard took all the medical research that had taken place around the world that looked at how buildings impact our health, collated it over a seven year period and turned it into a building code.

    Olga explains it as being a review of all the best practice and best guidance, of all the different components of building design. It covers the best guidance on air quality, water filtration, the safe use of building materials, and even through to management of buildings and how to operate them. It also touches on things like mental health and sense of community.

    While there are criteria that must be met in order to achieve the minimum certification, there are also optimisations which are points that can be earned to get to a higher level.

    Olga describes it as a very technical standard, where you submit documentation and are also tested in practice through performance verification testing. It is a robust procedure which assesses the building in use as well as in design.

    There are ten core areas of buildings that the standard covers:

    Air

    This looks at air filtration and ventilation, keeping the worst of the chemicals and particulate matter and dust out of the buildings, so as not to exacerbate things like allergens or asthma.

    Water

    In much the same way as air filtration, this is to keep out anything that could be harmful, such as coliforms, public water additives, agricultural contaminants, and by-products of disinfectants. It’s about ensuring that the water has been filtered to a high quality, which can be through a carbon filtration system or reverse osmosis.

    Nourishment

    Probably more relevant to buildings that have an operator providing food on site, but also adaptable to our own homes, this looks at the kind of food that is provided within a building. It considers portion sizes, allergen labelling, and reduction of added and refined sugars and any kinds of additives. It encourages healthy food messaging by promoting ethical sourcing of products and eating as much fruit and vegetables as possible.

    Light

    Ensuring we have the right light in buildings helps keep the circadian rhythm and body clock functioning as well as possible. The standard has guidance on sufficient distances from windows, making sure rooms aren’t too deep for the windows provided, and that the right colour quality is being used in relation to the time of day or night.

    Movement

    This thinks about how we encourage activity in the building to improve health. It can be about connection with the outdoors to make it easy for children to play, or in larger buildings it may be about ways of encouraging staircase use rather than lifts.

    Outside of the WELL Standard, but another idea that Olga suggests, is making outdoor space that is usable throughout the seasons, which will naturally encourage more outdoor activity for longer periods of the year.

    Thermal comfort

    Keeping buildings within comfortable thermal parameters is important for not aggravating conditions like asthma, eczema and stress, and making sure that our skin, eyes and organs function properly. Achieving this might be through shading and natural ventilation or mechanical cooling and ventilation systems.

    Sound

    Although not a mandatory part of the WELL Standard, acoustics make up an optimisation which far exceed UK building regulations.

    It looks at both transference of noise between rooms and also transference within a room. Olga says there are plenty of products on the market which can help absorb noise, and materials she particularly likes using for this are cork and clay plaster.

    Materials

    Firstly this looks to avoid materials that we know to be toxic, such as asbestos, mercury, lead and PCBs. In the optimisations of the standard it also considers VOCs and how they can be released from furniture, varnishes, paints and glues. When you’re designing a home you should be trying to reduce these levels by looking at natural sealants and products like sheep’s wool as a furnishing fabric and natural oils.

    As well as reading the specifications on the products, Olga suggests looking for external accreditation that any product you are using has been tested for a health component. Examples of these include Cradle to Cradle and Oeko-Tex.

    Mind

    This looks at how buildings impact our mental health, and what can be done to encourage better mental health through building design.

    Much of this can be down to access to nature, whether that be views across to green spaces or incorporating greenery in and around your rooms.

    Ori House

    And even using wood and other natural materials has been found to have calming effects.

    Community

    The WELL Standard looks at access to community services, community programmes, and how you’re incorporating the wider community as part of your building and initiative.

    Olga also recommends looking at the new NHS Social Prescribing Guidelines, which emphasise how our personal health can really gain from spending time with others, whether that be in group activities, gardening, etc.

    Innovation

    Olga describes innovation as being the most fun part of the WELL Standard. It is where you can be awarded points for coming up with new ideas that help increase health and wellbeing within buildings, that aren’t already covered by the standard. This could be anything like different lighting or having pets on site, as long as there is medical research to support the benefits.

    WELL Standard principles can be applied to individual projects

    While it is not possible to certify a single building, (there must be a minimum of five units and they have to have a common structural element) the principles and good design practice can be applied to individual projects.

    While some designers might be doing these things intuitively anyway as good design practice, for others the standard can just push them a bit further and support them with the scientific research.

    Ori House applies the principles

    Ekkist have worked on a conceptual standalone dwelling, Ori House, where they have applied the principles and taken on the parts that really resonate to homeowners, such as the daylight, air quality, water filtration, and using space better for social interaction but also to encourage privacy within the home.

    “We’ve tried to really think about that and create our own version of what it means to be a community but on an individual building level.”

    Ekkist are currently looking for sites to build this on, and are also working on an urban version, which Olga sees as being important as cities become ever more urbanised.

    “We want the quality and the health benefits of a rural home delivered in an urban environment. That’s our next big goal.”

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Ekkist

    Follow Ekkist on Twitter

    Find out more about the WELL Building Standard

    Check out our episode with Elinor Elisa about how she created a healthy home for her family.

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Olga Turner Baker

    Please connect with me

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  • HPH191 : Key decisions that impact on the sustainability of a house build – with Lloyd Alter from TreeHugger

    HPH191 : Key decisions that impact on the sustainability of a house build – with Lloyd Alter from TreeHugger

    Lloyd Alter from TreeHugger shares his advice on what we should be prioritising as 21st century self-builders.

    Interview with Lloyd Alter

    We catch up again with Lloyd Alter, whose work as an architect and a real estate developer led to his interest in modern building methods. He blogs for the website TreeHugger and also teaches sustainable design at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. Previously, Lloyd’s talked to us about worldwide trends in green designs.

    Don’t measure value in pounds per square foot

    Lloyd says that size will be the most important decision about a house build because so much relates to it. While building small may be preferable for sustainability, he acknowledges there are various problems to overcome.

    Some contractors may refuse work on smaller houses, or argue that a bigger house is better value. Lloyd warns against buying more space than you need. A bigger house may cost less per square foot but that is a dangerous criterion for measuring value. He explains, “It will cost you more per unit of area to build smaller but the aggregate, it will still cost you less.” Operating and maintenance costs will also be less with a smaller dwelling.

    House size may be dictated by the plot

    Re-sale value can force a self-builder into a larger project. Often it’s the land that really has the value, so there’s a judgement to be made about the right sized house for the size of the plot. And Lloyd points out that putting in services costs the same regardless of house size, potentially making it harder to recoup costs on a smaller house.

    By-laws can, in some instances, prevent small homes being built. For example, Lloyd explains that some North American municipalities fix minimum square footages to guarantee a minimum tax return.

    Balance location with lifestyle

    Lloyd recognises the dilemma for self-builders who want to minimise their carbon footprint but can’t afford the expensive land located close to facilities.

    Low energy buildings can reduce environmental impact, and changing habits can also mitigate high-energy consumption. Someone Lloyd knows – who lives 9km away from town – cycles, uses a hybrid car when he has to drive, minimises shopping trips and avoids ordering things delivered by truck. Lloyd himself tries to balance his many air miles by cycling and keeping his house at “incredibly low temperatures”.

    An independent expert will help you design for sustainability

    In a poorly planned house, you pay more for a poor living experience. Lloyd mentions one self-builder who incorrectly fitted insulation and this decision threatened to destroy his house.

    For Lloyd, an architect should “help you get to the essentials and put the essentials together in the most efficient, satisfying and beautiful way.” He sees this as directly linked to building sustainably: “The key to sustainability is living with less and the key to living with less is to have it designed properly.”

    To choose an architect or builder, Lloyd suggests going to see their work and spending enough time with them to know that you like them, they understand you and that you can understand what they’re saying; clients shouldn’t have to deal with what he calls “Architectese”!

    Simplicity should be designed into the house in the first place

    So-called “smart homes” are fashionable but Lloyd is wary of unnecessary complexity that adds cost and needs maintenance. “My attitude is I like a dumb home!”, he says, citing the Passivhaus as a good example of this. Using less power means no need for a smart thermostat or a complicated solar panel system connected to the grid. “The house takes care of itself,” he says.

    Another reason to keep house design simple is to accommodate changing technology. Low voltage LED bulbs have practically eliminated the problem of lighting load and our technology increasingly runs on low voltage DC wiring. Lloyd envisages future houses solely using DC, so any high voltage electric systems fitted now should be kept accessible.

    As different building elements last different lengths of time, Lloyd’s advice is to prepare and keep things simple. “Put as little of it as you need in. Because at some point, you’re going to have to redo it anyway.” Homeowners should be able to access, change or fix any systems in the house:

    Element of your propertyHow long it may last
    LandForever
    Frame of your house500 years
    Cladding200 years
    Windows100 years
    Plumbing50 years
    Electrical20 years
    Mechanical systems10 years

    Fabric first is fairer as well as simpler

    Lloyd believes it is unreasonable to simply aim for “net zero carbon”, stating, “We have to use less, period. Even if we’re trying to offset it with energy from sun or wind.” Thus, investment in domestic energy production is another trend that Lloyd mistrusts. Compared to the huge amount of energy used for transport, he describes solar panels on roofs as inconsequential. “We should be going after the big things. And that’s efficiency, not solar panels on the roofs,” he says.

    He remarks that policies of domestic generation of electricity disproportionately favour people who have south-facing roofs. Someone without a roof or who can’t afford solar panels will pay more for their electricity, meaning the poor end up paying for the grid. A fairer system in Lloyd’s view would be for everyone to live in houses that are built to a higher standard and use less energy.

    Preferred methods of building continue to change

    Lloyd teaches a sustainable design course and the content can change every year. Ten years ago, he taught about spray foam that seals and insulates efficiently, but we know now this foam contains unhealthy flame-retardants and some don’t even work below three degrees Celsius. The current insulation trend is for low carbon cellulose, although Lloyd prefers rockwool.

    On the subject of new building techniques, Lloyd says, “I’ve become very conservative as I’ve gotten older.” He sees people who want the “latest new thing” demolishing existing houses on highly sought-after plots. This discourages building really good quality houses because “they don’t seem to be building them forever anymore”.

    Construction methods can be more suited to specific locations

    Building with “brick and block” gives thermal mass, holding heat in the day and releasing it at night. Lloyd says that this principle works well in the high Arizona desert, with hot days and cold nights. In less extreme climates such as the UK it is less effective, and making bricks, concrete and mortar releases a lot of carbon dioxide before construction even begins.

    Homes should be comfortable, safe, secure and resilient

    A self-build should bring comfort and happiness. Just because it’s environmentally friendly doesn’t mean you have to suffer!

    Considering our changing world, Lloyd advises self-builders to prepare for power outages, provide some storage for water and food, and build high enough and not in the middle of a flood plain. He adds that if you have to cycle to get milk, then make sure you can actually do it! “That’s what a home is supposed to be,” he says. “A place of security and comfort. That’s what we should all be striving for.”

    Find out more

    Visit the website of TreeHugger

    Follow Lloyd Alter on Twitter

     

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Lloyd Alter

    Please connect with me

  • HPH189 : Is an electric car the perfect accompaniment for a low energy home? – with Robert Llewellyn from Fully Charged

    HPH189 : Is an electric car the perfect accompaniment for a low energy home? – with Robert Llewellyn from Fully Charged

    Actor and TV presenter Robert Llewellyn shares his insights about the future of electric cars and energy production.

    Image source: www.fullychargedshow.co.uk

    Interview with Robert Llewellyn

    Robert Llewellyn is an actor and TV presenter, perhaps best known for his role as Kryten on Red Dwarf. His Internet project Fully Charged discusses electric vehicles and renewable energy and is expanding beyond its origins on YouTube.

    From petrol-head to EV enthusiast

    Robert confesses that he once loved cars with big petrol engines. He experienced his first ride in a Prius back in 2001, but it took time to reconsider what he was interested in and, by default, promoting. He got his first electric vehicle (EV) in 2009.

    He acknowledges there have been teething problems along the way – the lack of a charging infrastructure initially didn’t help – and comments that well-funded propaganda from the fossil fuel industry has attempted to hold back development.

    However, Robert describes the current global car market as being at its peak in terms of the internal combustion engine, and says the wider transition to electric vehicles is finally gathering pace. Eventually, as with asbestos, tobacco, catalytic converters and leaded petrol, the corporations will change. For now, Renault, Nissan and Tesla are leading the way.

    Electric vehicles are part of a bigger revolution

    By thinking of an electric car as a battery and computer on wheels, Robert can see even bigger change ahead in the form of vehicle automation. Having experienced the fully autonomous Nissan Leaf, Robert says “When you go in it, you go ‘alright, fair enough. This stuff works.’” The car performed way better than any driver Robert has ever seen. He expects total adoption of automation by the trucking industry within five years.

    “They won’t sell models, they’ll sell mobility”

    To be a success, electric cars will need to completely change the ownership model. It’s not just oil consumption that is unsustainable. Regardless of whether there’s enough lithium to supply batteries at the rate the car market is growing, there isn’t enough steel, rubber or plastic to make enough cars. As 90% of cars on the road are not in use 90% of the time, selling a service (as opposed to a car) is the direction manufacturers will have to take.

    With a self-driving car you could use it as much as you do now without owning it or having it parked outside your house. You wouldn’t even need to charge it, Robert says. “It will be charged when it turns up at your house because it will have charged itself.” Getting a charging point at your house is still worthwhile though, as he adds, “It’s very obvious that it’s not going to happen overnight.” It’s likely to be at least 10 years and possibly 20 before we see a significant change in car ownership.

    The existing energy production system has hidden costs

    When making the TV series ‘How Do They Do It?’, Robert learnt that oil refineries use so much electricity they have to have their own power stations! One in Pembrokeshire uses the same amount of electricity in a year as Coventry and Leicester. Thus, reducing oil refining would enable the greater electricity consumption needed for more electric cars.

    This typifies the ‘invisible’ costs of established technology. Petrol stations are considered a normal part of everyday life, therefore the costs aren’t thought about. Yet Robert points out the energy required to supply petrol stations is “catastrophically colossal”.

    Energy companies are starting to embrace change

    Financial savings are motivating change in the energy industry. Robert gives the example of solar plants. As with coal and nuclear, initial installation is hugely expensive, but once up and running, solar is much cheaper. No fuel costs, no waste management, no storage and no transportation mean massive savings.

    In the case of Pacific Edison, the huge American power company who use coal, nuclear and gas plants to generate electricity, “peak management issues” were overloading the grid. They found the cheapest solution was batteries, and this was in fact Tesla’s first multi-megawatt sized grid battery backup.

    Renewable energy production is growing globally

    It’s encouraging to see the adoption of renewable technologies “at breakneck pace” around the world. Robert points to China where the rate of solar panel and wind turbine installations is “mindboggling”. The UK is gradually producing more renewable energy too: it is actually the biggest offshore wind generating country in the world, taking advantage of the fact that 40% of all the wind in Europe is around the British Isles.

    You can run your house off your car and vice versa

    Robert says he doesn’t actually see himself as very ‘green’ and even admits to having an Aga! However, he has made gradual changes. He only has electric cars now, and in his house he has improved the insulation, added solar panels, very good windows and a battery on the wall. As a result, his electricity bill has dropped by about 85%.

    This form of domestic energy production and storage represent a big threat to the status quo, which he calls massively inefficient: “We have to subsidise all of the fossil fuel plants to a colossal amount of money to keep them running.” Robert’s house is typical of how current technology can be much more efficient, and he describes how some offices in the UK use similar systems and save hundreds of thousands of pounds a year without using any grid electricity.

    Tesla Powerwall Battery
    Image source: www.inhabitat.com

    Local energy production and storage would be more efficient

    The big UK energy companies are actually in favour of producing, owning and selling electricity locally as it would save a lot of money. The price of electricity fluctuates from getting paid to use it, to being fantastically expensive. At peak times it is imported at a higher cost than we ever pay for it, by many thousands of percent.

    Robert counters recent claims we’d need ten times more electricity if we moved to local production and storage. More intelligent and regular use would avoid the sudden peaks and troughs that are currently so costly and inefficient.

    Volume new builds aren’t designed to be energy efficient

    Robert doesn’t hold back about the standard of new houses, which he says are “designed and built by morons!” He laments their individual gas boilers, traditional pitched roofs that don’t face south and lack of solar panels.

    Robert cites studies showing you can build an efficient house at the cheapest possible cost where the house produces ALL the energy it needs, emphasising, “the people who live in that house will have free heating and lighting for the life of the building.”

    Lower energy homes could make a huge difference

    By using systems like the ones Robert has, with solar panels, batteries for storage and electric cars, a house can place about 70% less demand on the grid. While this means very little by itself, application on a much larger scale could have a huge environmental impact. A million houses set up in that way would mean closing down two fossil fuel burning power plants.

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Fully Charged

    Follow Robert Llewellyn on Twitter

     

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Robert Llewellyn

    Please connect with me

  • HPH139 : Building biology principles – with Tomas Gartner from Gale & Snowden

    HPH139 : Building biology principles – with Tomas Gartner from Gale & Snowden

    Architect Tomas Gartner explains the principles of building biology and how they can be applied in your self build.

    tom_gaertner_grey

     

    Interview with Tomas Gartner

    Tomas qualified as an architect in Germany before moving to the UK in 2007 where he started working for Gale & Snowden, a Devon based architecture practice specialising in low energy, ecological design. He became a BREEAM code assessor and took a Passivhaus course in 2009 at the time that Gale & Snowden were doing their first Passivhaus buildings in Exeter, before studying for a building biology course in Germany.

     

    Building biology evolved in Germany in the 1960s

    In the early 1960s, when construction activity picked up in Germany, industry responded with more highly processed, cheaper goods which could be installed more quickly and with shorter drying times. Up until that point they had typically been using traditional materials such as brick, concrete, glass and timber, but Tomas estimates that today, probably 90-95% of construction materials have a petrochemical content and are highly processed, with adhesives, additives, coatings and treatments.

    So this led to the development of building biology, which aimed to establish whether there were associated health risks with any of these chemicals.

    “So it’s not about you can’t use them but it’s more about if they are a health risk, is there an alternative that we can use, economically but also technically without compromising on the performance, which takes that risk out of the building.”

    Sherwood - Regenerative Design, Integrated Permaculture Landscape and Passivhaus Principles in Devon
    Sherwood – Regenerative Design, Integrated Permaculture Landscape and Passivhaus Principles in Devon

     

    The building biology standard is not a certification standard

    Instead it provides a 3 page report defining healthy levels of potential hazards in the indoor environment, such as pollutants, VOCs, CO2 levels, temperatures, surface temperatures, radiation, dust, particles and mould.

     

    Air quality

    While Passivhaus will give you a good air quality compared to a naturally ventilated building, Tomas explains that it is fighting the symptoms because it doesn’t actually look at the materials that are being used. A ventilation strategy can only reduce the concentration of pollutants in a building, but there will still be constant off-gassing which a resident could react to if they’re particularly sensitive to certain chemicals.

    “But what building biology is about is one step before that actually. It’s not looking at right, let’s put together a building, don’t care what it is because we have a ventilation system takes it away anyway. We take it one step before that: what materials are we using in the first place, minimise the emissions from these materials, potential risk to it before we then look at the ventilation strategy and get a ventilation strategy that is as good as possible.”

    Building biology has a human focus and starts with an optimum environment, which they try and achieve in as energy efficient and economic way as possible. That will vary from client to client according to their needs and what feels comfortable to them. Then the architect can tailor the building to them.

    With a Passivhaus, Tomas suggests that sometimes, rather than squeezing it down to 0.3 air changes, it can be better to go for 0.5, compromising on energy efficiency but providing better air quality.

    “We want to come to a natural or as close to a natural undisturbed environment as possible.”

    Sherwood - Regenerative Design, Integrated Permaculture Landscape and Passivhaus Principles in Devon Sherwood - Regenerative Design, Integrated Permaculture Landscape and Passivhaus Principles in Devon
    Sherwood – Regenerative Design, Integrated Permaculture Landscape and Passivhaus Principles in Devon

    Radiation

    The World Health Organisation provide a list of potentially carcinogenic agents, with figures based on a range of studies, which include the magnetic fields from household electricity, high frequency radiation from mobile phones, DECT telephones and Wi-Fi. It isn’t clear how radiation is linked to cancer but there seems to be an increased risk for certain types of cancer where people are exposed to higher rates of radiation. Building biology uses a precautionary principle. It doesn’t seek to prove these things lead to cancer, but they attempt to minimise the risk and design it out where possible.

    Tomas stresses that it’s not about dictating what you can and can’t have, but it’s all about the exposure rate and trying to minimise it to a safe level, particularly in areas where we spend a lot of time, such as bedrooms. He explains that a mobile phone, even if switched off, will build up a connection every 30 seconds or so to check on connectivity, emails, etc. Tomas recommends that if you do need your phone in the bedroom that you switch it to Flight Mode, as this will not build up connections and is relatively safe.

    Tomas questions whether you even need Wi-Fi enabled at night. If not, it can be on a timer to switch off automatically at a set time.

    When it comes to wiring, they use a radial system which means every room has its own circuit so they don’t get pollutants from any other room into that wiring system. They then create a distance from the bed space to potential appliances – even moving sockets half a metre away from the bed will be enough to drop down to reasonable levels immediately. Another suggestion is using shielded cables if within a lightweight construction, which can reduce the fields considerably.

     

    Off-gassing / materials

    Tomas acknowledges that it can be extremely hard to get all the information you need about materials, as it is not something suppliers will generally want to reveal. He uses the example of traditional paints which have 4 or 5 ingredients in them, compared with modern paints which contain over 150 substances, most of which are on the carcinogenic list of substances. Although the amounts are very small, they might be put on walls in multiple layers. Add to that the varnish treatments and fire retardants on floors, drying agents in paints, substances that make paints a little easier to apply, etc. These things generally don’t benefit the end user, they just mean that the building can be handed over a bit quicker, but it is the end user who will be living with the off-gassing in the coming months and years.

     

    Water

    With water quality in the UK being relatively good, what is important is maintaining that quality once it’s within the building. Water quality within a house can be compromised by old lead pipes, old appliances and stagnant water sitting around in long pipe runs. Gale & Snowden start by making the connection to the drinking tap as short as possible and use a stainless steel connection because it’s anti-bacterial. Then they design the rest of the water system depending on the softness of the water, the pH value, and use materials that don’t get affected by it.

    They wouldn’t normally recommend water filtration because a filter is only effective if regularly maintained. Otherwise a residue builds up which can backflush into the system and provide ideal conditions for bacteria and mould to develop.

    “And so the lower risk is actually not to have a water filter, have decent materials in there, design it in the way that where you get your drinking water from, you flush it regularly through that and have short connections to that point.”

     

    Outside Spaces

    Outside spaces are important for mental and physical health, and for social interaction. Building biology looks at urban design too, whether there are better forms of living that can be considered and how we can integrate with the landscape. It also has strong connections to permaculture principles. Where there aren’t such opportunities it’s still about creating a healthy living environment and trying to improve it wherever possible. If you’re at the start of a project, that can include making use of opportunities to impact on regional planning and creating external spaces as well as healthy internal ones.

    “And that starts with your energy grid. Bringing it back to radiation, where you have your mobile phone masts for example. How you supply energy and resources, water to the scheme, but also how these spaces that you create interact and how you create social spaces as well which support family living as well as elderly for every part and every member of our society, a holistic approach in that as well.”

     

    It’s not about being fanatical

    Tomas is keen to stress that building biology is not about worrying people and being fanatical, but about taking a reasonable approach, understanding the risks and trying to improve wherever you can.

    “You will be surprised how far you can get with very simple measures that have minimal impact on your lifestyle.”

    Sherwood - Regenerative Design, Integrated Permaculture Landscape and Passivhaus Principles in Devon
    Sherwood – Regenerative Design, Integrated Permaculture Landscape and Passivhaus Principles in Devon

     

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Gale and Snowden

    Follow Gale and Snowden on Twitter

     

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Tomas Gartner.

     

    The Hub update

    Our case study, Long Barrow, is currently up to date with progress on site. If you listen to podcast episode 100 you’ll hear Alex Baines giving an overview of progress to date and explaining why he chose to stop before running out of money. You can catch up on all the videos we have produced on the build so far, taking you through plot assessment, the dig, insulating the slab and why you’d do that, the concrete pour, basement walls, steel frame and all the ICF construction and the roof going on. And we’ll pick this up again once construction work resumes.

    We’re currently looking for our next project to follow and are continuing with Self Build Success Stories in the meantime.

    The latest module we are working on is about building your team, and in what order you should bring people together, etc.

    If you’d like to know more about The Hub, please visit houseplanninghelp.com/join.

     

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