Mankind’s use of energy is now causing serious damage to our climate. An Eco-house is a house that uses very little energy, and so has minimal carbon dioxide emissions.
The very best eco-houses even produce more energy than they use.
An eco-house is...
 A home that is super insulated.- A home built with an internal and external air tight layer to minimise
heat loss through drafts.
- Designed to have minimal cold bridging to ensure very little heat is
conducted through the structure to outside.
- A home designed to allow solar gain from the south facing aspect to
heat the house on winter days.
- The above principles ensure very little heating demand is required in
the house. This small demand should be met by biomass– either logs,
wood chips or pellets.
- A home that utilises micro-generation where appropriate.
- A home where lighting and appliances are all low energy.
Our houses are all bespoke to suite the client’s design concept, but maintain the underlying theme of low energy design. This means we always think about orientation to maximise the solar gain potential, and pitch the roof such that solar panels and PVs are an option.
To achieve minimal heating demands it is essential to use high specification windows and doors. The windows on our houses meet the German Passivhaus standard so have excellent U values, which minimise heat loss.
Using this type of window on the south facing aspect is the best way to optimise the warming from the sun in the winter so minimising the heating requirements of the house.
For the summer months, shading from the sun is required, which can be simply achieved by using correctly sized roof overhang - the eaves will provide shelter from the high summer sun, as the diagram above demonstrates.
We base our construction on ‘I’ beams for all the main house structural elements, with larger Glulam posts and beams providing extra support where required.
A Glulam, also known as glue laminated timber is an engineered product using structurally graded timber laminations. These may be in Redwood, Larch, Douglas Fir or more usually Scandinavian Whitewood.
Each lamination is end-jointed to allow production of beams to any length and size – subject to your structural loadings. Glulam beams create an excellent visual feature in any building, we often have exposed Glulam posts in our builds to create a great feature that shows off the structure of the house. |
