Welcome to our blog.

This blog will follow the ultimate in home improvement: demolish and rebuild!

This is our starting point: a 1930s bungalow. While not a bad house; it is too small for us with three teenage children so what should we do? A full storey extension versus complete rebuild - ultimately the stronger eco-credentials and more certain finances of a new-build helped to guide our choice.

For a number of years we've been trying to find the right route for us to build an eco-friendly, low energy home. We tried various architects and building companies and have eventually settled with a German prefabricated build. The new house will be nearly to passivhaus standards (but not quite due to budget constraints). In any case, the house will be heavily insulated and airtight.

As a family, we have not built a house before so everything is new and exciting but the risk of making a mess of things is quite high!

This blog aims to outline the day to day steps involved in our build.

Wednesday, 13 April 2011

Snagging ends but the garden grows

We have had some snagging problems; such as the calibration of the rain water harvesting tank but that has been resolved now. There are some remaining problems with the mechanical ventilation with heat recovery system which is not meeting the planned specification for the house. We hope for a resolution of this in the future.

The house itself is working very well. The airtightness and high level of insulation have offered us a very energy efficient way of living. We are very happy with it. The house is so comfortable that the bungalow is a dim and distant nightmare. We have lots of space and light and could not imagine living in a conventional house again. Anyway, we are now looking at improving the garden so I will only occasionally be adding now posts to this blog.

Meanwhile, if you want to continue following the goings on in our project, you can see the new blog: blog my garden. Watch as the garden takes shape again after the build, although, the results are not going to be as fast!