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  • HPH357: Beginner’s guide to eco renovation – with Judith Leary-Joyce

    HPH357: Beginner’s guide to eco renovation – with Judith Leary-Joyce

    Judith Leary-Joyce shares her experience of retrofitting a Victorian end-terrace house to reduce energy consumption, make it more healthy and comfortable, and leave a sustainable legacy for future generations.

    Interview with Judith Leary-Joyce

    Judith Leary-Joyce has a life long passion for climate justice and sustainability, being one of the first members of Friends of the Earth. This passion touches every part of her life, so when she and her husband decided to undertake an extension of their Victorian, end of terrace home, it was not long before the thread of sustainable building had been pulled and a full retrofit project was underway.

    Through the process, Judith decided to collate all of the most useful information she had learnt into a book called the Beginner’s Guide to Eco Renovation: Understand the Basics and the Best Questions to Ask.

    ‘Retrofit’ is the word you want

    Judith and her husband have lived in their Victorian end of terrace home since 1979 and over this time have undertaken a number of renovations. But it wasn’t until they began to look at extending the ground floor at the rear in a sustainable way that they discovered the world of whole house ‘retrofit’.

    “We realised, it doesn’t make any sense to stick a really good eco build on the back of a leaky house. And then after a long night of the soul, many lists, we came out saying no, we want to make the house a legacy for the future.”

    Most homes a ripe for a retrofit

    Judith says we must recognise the environmental impact of outdated housing and the necessity of retrofitting them for comfort, health and energy efficiency. Everything that we do has an impact on the planet, and our housing is one of the largest investments that we can influence to be greener.

    “21% of UK emissions come from leaky homes. In the UK, every home built before 1990 needs a retrofit.”

    Watch an entire retrofit of this mid terrace home in The Hub.

    Adopt one ‘eco’ habit at a time

    Judith speaks openly about how she manages to live a climate conscious life and how important it is to make small and gradual changes. Her green lifestyle includes refusing plastic wherever possible, eating vegan or vegetarian meals, banking ethically (not supporting fossil fuel companies, for example) and driving electric vehicles, but this didn’t happen overnight. Her key message is to try your best and be conscious of the impacts that your actions have on the world, but most importantly identify the areas where you might be best able to make changes.

    “If you look at everything at once around climate, and it’s getting worse and worse and worse, I can get into paralysis… So my way of managing over the years has been to take one thing at a time and get to be like an eco warrior about that.”

    Become an informed client

    One challenge you may face with a retrofit is finding builders with the appropriate experience. Therefore it becomes really important that they buy in to what you are trying to achieve. Judith’s builder was happy to co-operate but was new to some of these principles (continuous breathable insulation, an airtightness layer, a well thought out ventilation strategy) so Judith and her husband had to ensure that they were educating themselves on the correct processes and acting as quality control.

    “We had just builders, we didn’t have eco builders. And of course, they just wanted to do what they’ve always done and go down to the local building yard and get exactly what they want. We were saying, we’ve got to order it and it’ll take four days to come… That went down like a lead balloon. ”

    Breathability must be maintained in old houses

    For older homes, maintaining breathability (vapour openness) is essential to prevent issues like damp and mould from occurring. This influenced the choice of wood fibre over petrochemical-based products.

    “It’s an old house; anything before 1930 is going to be a breathable build. So we had to be breathable and to understand why.”

    Diathonite (insulated plaster) on the front bay wall
    Internal insulation of gable wall with wood fibre Pavaflex 
    Wood fibre insulation under the suspended floor

    Check the quality of work regularly

    Judith and her husband stayed in their house while the work was carried out. Although there were challenges, such putting up with the dust and having nowhere to retreat to, they were able to be present and involved in the project.

    “The real value of that was that we went round each evening to see what they’d done, and we were checking was it okay.”

    Find passionate and knowledgable people to help guide you

    Judith explains that not all professionals, including architects, were fully engaged or supportive of the retrofit. As a result she decided to take matters into her own hands by finding passionate and knowledgeable experts to offer advice. Judith highlights that often the best people are within the sales or tech support teams of sustainable building companies. They are often experts who are thrilled to share their knowledge.

    Plan your work and then work your plan

    Having a comprehensive plan before you carry out any work on site is a really good idea. Much as with a new build project, a retrofit requires a level of detail and that comes from working through the design process.

    Judith has put everything she’s learned into a book

    The eco renovation was a learning journey, with Judith continually researching and adapting to new information and best practices. However, she wants you to get ahead more easily. So she’s written a book called the Beginner’s Guide to Eco Renovation, which maps out the process and aims to set you up for success.

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Eco Renovation Home

    Buy Beginner’s Guide to Eco Renovation: Understand the Basics and the Best Questions to Ask

    Judith’s Tedx Talk

    Judith’s Youtube channel

    Judith on Instagram

    Transcript

    Download the transcript of this episode.

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  • HPH167 : What is a healthy building product? – with Simon Corbey from ASBP

    HPH167 : What is a healthy building product? – with Simon Corbey from ASBP

    Simon Corbey from the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP) shares some thoughts on what makes a healthy building product.

    Interview with Simon Corbey

    Simon Corbey became a chartered surveyor in the nineties, but later decided he wanted to do something more meaningful and so volunteered at Construction Resources, London’s first eco builders’ merchant. During his five years there he worked his way up to being a specialist in natural paints. It was whilst in this role that he came into contact with people who had developed health issues using conventional materials and who were looking for better options.

    Since then he’s worked for BioRegional, the Sustainable Development Foundation, the Good Homes Alliance and the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products.

     

    Not all materials affect people in the same way

    As we are all different, we all react to products in different ways.

    Simon comments: “What will affect one person, because they’re chemically sensitive for example, just won’t affect another person. So, unfortunately, it gets quite complicated, quite quickly.”

     

    If in doubt about a product, perhaps avoid it

    The precautionary principle is a good rule of thumb.

    If you don’t really know what’s in a product and you can’t get hold of a full statement of the contents, and if there’s a slight doubt in your mind, it’s probably better not to use it.

    Instead, find a product that you can trust, where there is a full declaration of contents.

     

    A healthy building should address a number of disciplines

    A healthy building is a complex matrix and includes disciplines such as acoustics, daylighting and ventilation.

    Source control – controlling the amount of chemicals that come into a house in the first place – and effective ventilation are fundamental to creating a healthy indoor environment.

     

    Natural products are not always healthy

    It could be argued that all products are ‘natural’ because they’re made from materials that naturally occur on our planet.

    Increasingly natural materials are processed and then joined up with other products to make a system. At this point, it becomes harder to classify that system in regards to its health and wellbeing benefits.

    Simon says: “There are plenty of products, natural paints for example, that have quite high levels of VOCs within them, whether it be dryers, whether it be the oils themselves.”

     

    Healthy products often have additional benefits

    Simon uses wood fibre insulation as an example of a product that has benefits beyond its main purpose. For example, it’s a waste product that’s binded with steam and has no additional glues. This makes it a great product to handle and cut.

    As its dense, it is good is alleviating the effects of overheating.

     

     Copyright Architype

    Good architects will develop a pallet of ‘tried and tested’ materials

    Through years of experience leading architects will test different products and reuse those which they believe are the most beneficial.

    Simon points to Architype as an example of a company that has refined its pallet of materials over time. So now they’ll only use a limited range of paints, insulations and material systems.

    “They’ve been doing quite a lot of measurement and monitoring to understand how this process is working or not working. They are then informing themselves and their practice and refining their pallet of products as they go along.”

     

    Natureplus products have been thoroughly researched

    When asked if there are any good ways for self-builders to understand if a product is sustainable, Simon suggests checking out an eco label called natureplus.

    Originating from Germany, the idea of a natureplus product is that the product will only be granted a certificate if it’s from a truly abundant source.

    Natureplus has a detailed lifecycle analysis so you can look at the embodied carbon of a product. But also, all the products are third party independently tested in a laboratory for chemicals and off-gassing.

    Simon continues: “The natureplus criteria commission sets very hard standards to reach and in some cases, no products are natureplus certified. The idea of natureplus is that it’s on the top of the triangle. It’s trying to pull the market up and so it represents really only the best products.”

     

    Manufacturing costs of healthy products will come down

    Currently healthy products are more niche and will probably cost more, but if they were produced in greater quantities the economies of scale would kick in and costs would come down.

    Simon says that France has invested heavily in the production of wood fibre insulation. With at least seven or eight new factories opening in the last couple of years, the prices are already coming down.

     

    Careful specification and installation are important steps

    Quite often the ‘right’ product can be put in the wrong place or installed incorrectly.

    This might lead to moisture build up, for example.

     

    Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) can perform a function within materials

    Simon explains: “There is a tension between using low VOC products and quality. It’s a tension that I don’t think will ever go away. But there are issues where, for example, some external paints which are low VOCs have been proved to be rubbish and blistered and need repainting within a year or two.”

     

    Ongoing investigation is crucial

    Simon has been looking at formaldehyde recently to try and understand more about what it is, how it occurs and how to specify for low formaldehyde products.

    “Formaldehyde is a ubiquitous gas. It’s all around us. It’s in my breath, it’s in your blood. Low levels of it is absolutely fine and I think we even need it. But high levels of it are a no-no and it’s a known carcinogen.”

    After testing a school where formaldehyde levels were 10 times the World Health Organisation’s recommended levels, Simon explains how difficult it is to isolate the source. “It could well have come from flooring, carpets, furniture – all of these are common sources of formaldehyde. Certainly, if you’re importing particleboard from China, for example, you may find that formaldehyde limits are off the scale.”

    He does go on to say that it’s not too difficult to specify low formaldehyde products if you do the appropriate checks.

     

    Think beyond performance and cost when specifying

    PVC windows have always been a bit of a bugbear for Simon.

    “They are made from fossil fuels and chlorine is used. Chlorine is a highly energy intensive product to make and the process in this country still relies, in certain cases, on mercury filters. There are still a number of companies in the UK that have a licence to off-gas mercury into the environment.”

    So when choosing a product, consider:

    • How it forms
    • Where it comes from
    • What it’s made from
    • Whether it’s really restorative and environmentally friendly

     

    Find out more

    Visit the website of the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP)

    Follow the ASBP on Twitter

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Simon Corbey 

     

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