Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Inheriting a field with a dilapidated concrete barn on it gave Bob and Tally Moores
an opportunity to fulfil what was, for Bob at least, a long-held dream of building his
own house. Planning permission had been refused on the barn once, but after some
detective work Bob and Tally found an old map which convinced the council that,
contrary to previous opinion, the barn sat within the village boundary, and permis-
sion was eventually granted for demolition of the barn and construction of a house.
Bob is a carpenter, used to timber framing, so his house was always going to be based
around a green oak frame, and having worked for a supplier of traditional and environment-
ally friendly building products, he was familiar with lime and other natural materials. He
was doing an MSc in Sustainable Architecture at the Centre for Alternative Technology,
from which he says he learnt a lot, but couldn't understand why everyone was talking about
easy-build bolt-together timber-frame houses with lightweight insulation, which needed to
be sealed up tight to keep the heat in and then ventilated using mechanical systems to main-
tain indoor air quality. Bob says, “Up to the point when we built the house, I had lived
mainly in vernacular buildings, built from local, natural materials that had stood the test of
time. I wanted the same feeling of permanence from the house I was going to build myself
… to know that, as well as being a high-thermal-performance eco-house, it would stand a
chance of being there for centuries to come, and I didn't think I would get that from a light-
weight insulated timber-frame house.” The more Bob thought about it, the more it seemed
to him that thermal mass was the key to passively storing heat, whether created by heating
systems or from the sun, and slowly releasing this energy to maintain a constant comfort-
able temperature inside.
The final design included a green oak structural frame, with a softwood studwork frame
built off this to take the hempcrete. The principles of passive solar design were followed:
highly efficient glazing on the south-facing elevation and a minimum of windows on the
north side, together with a good overhang so that the windows are shaded in summer but
allow direct sunlight in during the winter, when the sun is lower in the sky. All the external
walls are 300mm hempcrete, with additional thermal mass provided by a deeper-than-usual
concrete floor slab and slate floor covering in the open-plan living area. The roof is insulated
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