Bere Admin August 17th, 2010
Capital Costs, Cost Savings in Use, Carbon Emissions, Payback,
How to Earn £1300 a Year from a Zero Carbon Passivhaus
Fenestration Calculations
Larch House, our first Welsh Passivhaus Social Housing prototype, is officially certified by the Passivhaus Institute and has also been designed to achieve Zero Carbon Code 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes. This is a 3 bed passivhaus designed to minimize Annual Heat Demand (below 15kW/m2/yr). Much of the winter warmth in this house is derived from solar gains, but Ebbw Vale is 1000ft up in the top of a valley, with cold and misty winters. To keep winter heat inside, the insulation levels are very high and because of the relative lack of winter sun compared to a lowland site, the windows are unusually large to maximize the solar gains from a bright overcast winter sky (55% of south elevation). This is the traditional design strategy for a passivhaus, resulting in great comfort, tiny energy bills, and bright and airy interior spaces. However for social housing, we needed to find a way to overcome the costs associated with large windows and retractable blinds, so we made subtle but crucial changes to the way we designed the second passivhaus, Lime House, currently under construction. Continue Reading »
Bere Admin August 16th, 2010
A new mini-community of zero and near zero carbon homes on the site of the old steel works at Ebbw Vale look set to not only stimulate the development a low carbon built environment in Wales but also to kick-start a ‘green’ economy in the country.
The Welsh Future Homes project, launched today by Jane Davidson AM, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, is a unique development of three affordable houses and a visitor centre. One of the homes has been designed to meet Level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, making it a zero carbon home - the first to be achieved in Wales.
Each of the buildings are constructed from a range of locally sourced materials that demonstrate high sustainability credentials and low energy costs of as little as £50 per annum.
Read more on the BRE website
Bere Admin August 15th, 2010
Monday 11 October 2010
Islington Town Hall Assembly Rooms
Upper Street, London N1 2UD
www.ukpassivhausconference.org
The UK Passivhaus conference steering group has now completed work on the agenda for this Autumn’s passivhaus conference. The conference will include a small exhibition of carefully selected passivhaus supply companies. All tickets are designed to be affordable for professionals, students and exhibitors – just enough so that the cost of holding the conference can be met.
Download Agenda
Download Flyer
Bere Admin June 14th, 2010
At the same time as driving for energy efficiency, the UK must de-carbonise the electricity supply without creating toxic nuclear waste hazards for the planet and for future generations. Wind energy offers the solution for the UK:
The Offshore Valuation is the first full economic valuation of Britain’s offshore renewable resource.
The report finds that using just one third of the UK’s wind, wave and tidal resource could:
- unlock the electricity equivalent of 1 billion barrels of oil a year (matching North Sea oil and gas production).
- give CO2 reductions of 1.1 billion tonnes by 2050
- create 145,000 new UK jobs
The Offshore Valuation Group is an informal collaboration of government and industry organisations who have come together to address the question: what is the value of the UK’s offshore renewable energy resource?
offshore_valuation_full.pdf
www.offshorevaluation.org
Bere Admin May 24th, 2010
Following the huge success of the North London conference in February, which was fully booked in a week with a waiting list of more than 100 people, a much bigger, national conference will take place this Autumn (again in London) with a much wider outreach. The steering group is putting together an exciting programme which includes a low-cost exhibition of carefully selected, high quality suppliers.
Watch this space for more information coming soon.
Bere Admin May 21st, 2010
Our Welsh Passivhaus social housing prototype today achieved what is probably the best result so far for a UK pressurised air test for an above-ground, detached house. As predicted, the second airtest which was carried out today on our 3 bed social housing passivhaus prototype (after completion of M&E installation including services penetrations) achieved an even better result than the first test. On decompression at 50 pascals the result was 0.17 air changes per hour, but on average of 50pa decompression and compression, 0.197 air changes per hour was the final result as measured and calculated by Paul Jennings, probably the UK’s most respected air testing specialist. Continue Reading »
Bere Admin May 15th, 2010
My globe trotting friend Marten Simms has sent me news from Vancouver of one of his current projects; I strongly recommend the link below:
I co-run Wake, a non-profit marine conservation initiative based here in Vancouver, Canada. We focus on saving sharks and tuna. Yes, tuna. To find out more about why we are doing this please take a moment this weekend to find out how you can help reduce the number of sharks dying worldwide (currently about 192 every minute). So, if you love the other 71% of this planet and care about every second breath you take, check it:
www.wakeproject.net
We will continue to update the website as we evolve, so please check back whenever you can. It’s a pretty comprehensive site. Dive deep and rediscover this blue beauty you live on.
Oh, and don’t eat tuna. No, seriously, don’t eat tuna. Ask me why.
It’s time to wake up.
Marten
Bere Admin May 2nd, 2010
Fund raising is now complete. The tenders came in on budget. One of the UK’s first certified Passivhaus retrofits starts on site on May 17th. The building is predicted to make 94% energy savings compared to the existing building, while at the same time greatly increasing the usable floor space of the building. When the centre re-opens it will be re-orientated southwards to a new community garden.
Bere Admin May 2nd, 2010
On Monday the timber frame contractors of our Welsh Passivhaus prototype social housing managed a fantastic first air test result of 0.29 air changes per hour under 50 pascals air pressure! This is one of the best air test results carried out by a UK contractor so far; more than twice as good as the minimum standard required for a Passivhaus, 34 times better than UK Building Regulations, and right up there with the best current German construction standards.
It’s a really great show of what can be achieved by the UK construction industry where there is a keen and motivated and diligent contractor teamed with diligent architects providing a carefully thought out and thoroughly explained airtightness rationale. Continue Reading »
Bere Admin February 10th, 2010
The Camden passivhaus home is about knowledge transfer from Austria and Germany and the Welsh Passivhaus project is about trying to apply this knowledge to social housing prototypes. We are also working on a terraced Welsh Passivhaus home to save more money and energy than detached houses.
Where there is political will, such as in Wales, we believe it is possible to achieve 90% energy savings in houses now. This is in spite of the Welsh heads of valley location having Winter conditions as unfavourable as an Austrian mountainside. This is because, whilst the winter outdoor temperatures in Wales are warmer than Austria, there is a lot less winter sun on a Welsh hill than on an Austrian mountain.
We are trying to show that the UK can and should be making massive savings on all new buildings NOW. The less-developed world is understandably becoming very frustrated with the lack of action from the developed world. Two days ago, the chief negotiator for India at the Copenhagen and Mexico climate change conferences described the overall achievements so far of the UK, America and Australia as “pathetic” and he is absolutely right about this.
Bere Admin February 5th, 2010
What was planned as a small Camden and Islington Passivhaus conference on February 3rd for local architects and council employees, quickly became an over-subscribed event and a major UK Passivhaus conference. Refer to the following link for more details: www.cuttingthecarbon.co.uk/news/15/101
Bere Admin February 5th, 2010
These are the first prototypes for passivhaus homes at Ebbw Vale in Wales, to be on show at the Eisteddfod in July this year. 700 homes are planned for the site over the next few years. Wales is going zero carbon on all new homes from next year (2011) and it is possible that they will define zero carbon as based on the Passivhaus standard of energy efficiency. This is a definition of zero carbon that is 3 times more ambitious in terms of specific heat requirements than the English definition of zero carbon to be applied to new homes in England in 5 years time.
Bere Admin February 2nd, 2010
Camden Passivhaus, Camden, London
(due to be completed March 2010)
The primary objective of this project is to achieve a comfortable home for a young family, whilst minimising energy consumption. This house has been designed to use less than 13kWh/m2/a for heating (a typical new home in the UK is likely to consume nearer 100kWh/m2/a)
The project is a 120m2 single family house split over two floors, with two wild flower meadow roofs and a south facing garden. Continue Reading »
Bere Admin January 7th, 2010
Wednesday, February 3rd 2010 (Camden Town Hall, Judd Street)
Councillor Alexis Rowell of Camden Council, the Liberal Democrat ‘Eco Councillor’ and very active chair of the Camden Sustainability Task Force has organized what will arguably be the first dedicated Passivhaus conference in the UK (The AECB could also arguably claim this). The decision to organize the conference came after a period of broad but intensive research by Alexis and the Camden Council Sustainability Taskforce on cutting carbon emissions in UK buildings. This research was carried out in the UK (inviting a wide range of experts to present to the Sustainability committee) and abroad (research visits) by Alexis and other Liberal Democrat councilors.
One of the most convincing research visits included a trip to Frankfurt to meet the leader of the passivhaus schools programme there, Axel Bretzke, and to visit the successful Riedberg School, now famous throughout Europe for its proven success in cutting energy consumption to amazingly low levels. Axel explained that the Frankfurt school was developed after energy and air quality monitoring of traditionally designed schools. Apart from the high energy demand of contemporary traditionally designed schools, they found, in practice, appalling winter air quality in schools that relied on only natural ventilation. By combining natural (summer) and active (winter) heat recovery ventilation, the Riedberg passivhaus school is now famous throughout Europe for achieving extremely low heat energy and electrical demand, whilst at the same time achieving extremely good summer and winter air quality. Continue Reading »
Bere Admin November 22nd, 2009
bere:architects are very pleased that our office and Justin’s home known as ‘The Muse’ has been honoured with the 2009 award for Best Environmental Project. This was a particularly enjoyable occasion because this prize gave Justin the opportunity to meet Penny Poyzer, leader of the judges, who was one of the original project members of the Hockerton Housing Project with Robert and Brenda Vale. A weekend in Cambridgeshire and a visit to Hockerton are planned for the Spring….
Bere Admin November 21st, 2009
Councillor Alexis Rowell’s website provides an update on the Camden Passivhaus.
www.ecocouncillor.org.uk
Bere Admin November 6th, 2009
Read the original post here
Justin Bere, 6th Nov 2009
Amanda, if you are searching the internet for scientific facts, may I suggest that you dip into Cambridge Professor David JC MacKay’s extremely scientific and highly respected book at www.withouthotair.com. There you will see graphs showing the big rise in atmospheric CO2 levels that occurred between about 1800 and 2000. Scientific fact.
To those who remain sceptical about the cause of this, MacKay asks “does sceptic mean someone who has not even glanced at the data? Don’t you think, just possibly, something may have happened between 1800AD and 2000AD? Something that was not part of the natural processes present in the preceding thousand years? Continue Reading »
Bere Admin November 6th, 2009
Amanda Baillieu shocks Building Design readers with her claim that the science of global warming is just ‘hot air’ (the text of this article was toned down Monday 9th November, 9pm)
November 6th 2009, Amanda Baillieu today wrote a shocking article in Building Design. In her title piece, she refers to “the increasing evidence against man-made climate change” however she does not explain what she means by this and appears to have no real interest or grasp of the issues. When challenged to substantiate her claim, she did no more than refer to “the dizzying range of ideas that are being debated” – without giving details of a single one of them.
Her ‘twitter’ site gives some indication of what is behind this. Items 2, 4, 13, 17, 18 below are written by Ms Baillieu. Ref to no.18 at 10.03am on Nov 4th indicates that it seems to have started by an article she read in the Guardian about a judge finding that someone was discriminated against for his environmental principles. At 10.07am she exclaimed to the world “Basically believing in man made climate change is a bit like hoping that fairies live at the bottom of the garden.”
This is followed by some mind-numbingly vacant utterances from another journalist and a designer. (who’s home page curiously says “We are the leading UK consultancy working across public health, sustainability and planning.”)
Continue Reading »
Bere Admin November 6th, 2009
The Welsh Assembly, advised by Nick Tune of BRE (Wales), is leading the UK in its drive towards the most efficient, low energy designs possible for new housing.
These are similar first steps to those of the small, self-contained Vorarlberg region in Austria. In the early 1980’s, when in the UK we were squandering our oil reserves without making any plans for renewable energy generation or energy efficiency, as if there was no tomorrow, the government of Vorarlberg developed a plan for self-sufficiency in food and energy. Vorarlberg is now prosperous and the community is well housed, well educated, well fed and relatively happy. Continue Reading »
