Archive for September, 2008

Of milestones and mayhem

September 28, 2008 · Filed under State of our house · Tagged ,

A milestone was reached today when we removed the door from the old kitchen into the new. Up ’til now, the new kitchen was isolated from the rest of the house and we had to go outside to access it. Not anymore. Donald installed the steps down to the kitchen and opened the door for the first time in months. Only he couldn’t. Since it was sealed up in May the extension has grown around it, including the stairs on the upper floor. So when it came to the grand reopening there wasn’t enough clearance for the old door.

What ensued was one of those classic self-build moments when you realise that you have just made life unnecessarily hard for yourself and that something you thought was straightforward is going to be a time- and labour-consuming pain in the arse. We tried sawing off the top corner of the door – it still wouldn’t open enough for us to reach the screws of the hinges. We hacked it with a chisel, we whacked it with a hammer, we tried to remove the glass panel, we cursed and swore. To no avail. We were trapped in a Three Stooges scene of our own making. Some time later we hit on the idea of drilling a lot of holes close together around the hinges. It seemed to be working up until the point the drill died. We waited for it to charge up and tackled it again. One hinge came off, the other remained stubbornly in place. The drill bit broke. We swore again. We yanked and gimmied and rattled the door but could not unhinge it. A good kick would probably have done it but we were standing – one at each side of the door – at the top of the stairs, so that wasn’t an option. Another tap with the chisel and hammer and it was, finally, off.  Woohoo!

The plumber arrived on Friday to hook up the heating, water and waste pipes so now all that’s left to do is… clear Donald’s workbench and tools out of the room; sweep up all the dust and rubble; paint the ceiling; seal the plasterboard; clean, sand and re-stain the new door; lay the flooring; install the kitchen units; put in the thermaskirt heating and switch on the electrics. Nearly done : )

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And now, the end is near

September 18, 2008 · Filed under State of our house · Tagged , , ,

Donald returns to uni full-time tomorrow so our deadline is officially up. If you have been following our progress you’ll know that we’re not quite done yet, so we’re going to be weekend builders for the foreseeable future. And our budget is pretty much spent. What’s left in the kitty is allocated for the heating, plumber and electrician.

But we have pretty much accomplished our aim. We have a habitable extension built with sustainable materials in a low impact way. We have a super-insulated building that will be energy efficient and cheap to heat. We have achieved this on a tight budget while maintaining high standards and it looks pretty good. Though we’re behind schedule we are still way ahead of the extensions on the road which predated our build.

We may not have a kitchen installed yet but we’re close. The plumber is coming tomorrow, the electrician next week and Donald’s Dad will lay the flooring the following weekend. Then we can retrieve our appliances and flatpacks from our friends’ garage and, finally, put our kitchen together. Minus the counter top, but that’s another story.

Regrets, we’ve had a few…

Obviously, we’re not happy about the zero decorating budget. Having put so much effort into constructing an eco home it would have been nice to reflect this ethos on the interior. The recycled glass counter top will remain the stuff of dreams for now. And the kids’ rooms are a delightful shade of grey (plasterboard).

We’ve written about some of the compromises we’ve had to make, such as the floor, but we can live with those. We’ve had to forego the downstairs toilet / utility room but we’ve never had either of these before so we won’t know what we’re missing. The big regret is that we have no budget to work on the old part of the house. So we’ll be spending another winter with draughty aluminium windows, a white PVC front door and our old radiators. I anticipate we’ll be spending most of our time in the cosy new bit.

And what of the blog? Well, we’ll keep posting until the building is well and truly finished. And then we’ll morph into an eco-decorating blog. On a budget. On a very tight budget. On a down-to-one-income budget. Expect creativity, imagination, auctions and freecycling. Lots of freecycling.

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Dilemmas – bathrooms

September 13, 2008 · Filed under Budget tips, Dilemmas, Eco tips, State of our house · Tagged , ,

The room that is closest to completion is the bathroom. And very proud of it we are too. When we moved in we had a tiny shower room with barely enough room to turn in. We converted what was an ungenerous second bedroom and now we have a bathroom large enough to swing a cat. Several cats, possibly simultaneously. If you were into that sort of thing.

From an eco point of view, adding a bath doesn’t make much sense. The biggest environmental issue in the bathroom is water usage and, as anyone who can quote tired statistics will tell you, showers use a fraction of the water that baths do. This is something I have always had issue with. It is taken as a truism but really is only accurate if you have a short shower. If you spend half the morning in there shaving your legs and waiting to rinse out the conditioner you may as well have run a bath. If in doubt, try putting the plug in while having a shower (obviously this only works if your shower is of the over-the-bath variety) and see how high the water level rises. If you’ve got kids you’ll know that it is virtually impossible to wash a small wriggly five year old in a shower without saturating yourself. And two separate kids’ showers add up to more than throwing them into the bath together. Not to mention the hours of entertainment they spend in there. When you’re sitting in the bath you aren’t consuming any energy at all – I consider it a low impact activity. If yours is a power shower, you can forget the moral high ground – they are energy vampires.

Does all that sound like justification? Well it is. Dilemma or not, we got the bath. Showers are great for waking you up and getting you clean but there are times when only a long soak in a bath will do – for instance when you’ve been self-building all day and every muscle you didn’t know you had aches. But of course we tried to do this in as low impact a way as possible. Having sourced the bath we wanted – a British-made one to save on air miles – Donald went to collect it only to find it in bad shape. When could we get a replacement? Not for three weeks. In the end the plumber sourced the bath as he was booked in and couldn’t wait. So, another compromise. There are other ways of sourcing baths for an eco house – salvage is a fantastic way to re-use period furniture and fittings and will usually be cheaper than getting a reproduction. We didn’t go for this option as we felt that claw baths + kids = big puddles to clear up after bath time.

Our eco points come from re-using what was there. We moved the existing toilet, sink and shower into the new bathroom. We even took down and re-used the wet wall from the shower, painstakingly chiselling off the adhesive and silicone. We sanded the floor boards, which came up lovely, so we can seal the gaps and stain them – no need for new flooring.

Having a nearly complete room means something else – I finally get to indulge the urge to decorate which has lain dormant amid the rubble for so long. However, the rapidly diminishing budget means I can’t indulge it as much as I’d like. Sigh.

First thing I wanted was funky taps for the bath. On holiday in France last year, the apartment we stayed in had mixer taps with a thermostat that had a push button control. This meant that the bath filled at an even 38o – saving the hassle of adding a bit of cold, then a bit more hot, then another drop of cold. If you wanted to go hotter than this you had to depress a safety button – so no accidental scalds for the kids. The other button controls the flow to reduce water usage. We took a note of the brand – Hansgrohe – and went searching for them. Turns out they aren’t stocked by any supplier in Perth. Donald tracked them down at the Ecobuild Conference in London and priced the taps we wanted. £400. Ouch. Not being in the habit of giving up, I went online and discovered that Hansgrohe UK have an ebay outlet – http://stores.ebay.co.uk/hansgrohe-uk. We got exactly the taps we wanted (Ecostat) for £100 including postage.

Then I turned my attention to tiles. I fancied glass tiles and figured that it must be possible to source some made with recycled glass. Again, I searched the internet. Again, our ideals and budget clashed. We found some gorgeous ones at Bottle Alley Glass - a huge variety of shades and patterns – but the price! At £150 per m2 we had to pass. There was a crowd in Glasgow who only did bespoke at £200 per m2. At the same time I priced ‘designer’ glass tiles from conventional sources at approx. £100 per m2. Which brings us back to the eternal question – why do manufacturers of recycled products charge a premium when their materials are so cheap? But tenacious as ever (ok, stubborn) I managed to find a product that proves it is possible to be both economical and ecological. Original Style produce glass tiles in England using traditional methods – so they are quality tiles. One of their ranges – recycled glass matt mosaics – is billed as their ‘economical and environmentally friendly’ range. It is available in a limited range of colours – white, black/grey, blue and green – but it’s a start. And lucky for us, the green ones work really well with the existing wet wall. We ordered the three m2 we needed for the bath surround for the grand total of £66. Not per m2, that’s the total. That brings them in at less than 20% of the cost Bottle Alley’s tiles. Maybe not quite as funky and original but, y’know, for £22 per m2 I can live with that.

Our bargain Hansgrohe Ecostat taps

Recycled matt mosaic tiles from Original Style

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Dilemma – flooring

September 11, 2008 · Filed under Dilemmas, materials · Tagged , , ,

When we started this project we understood that at certain times the best environmental option and our meagre budget would clash and we would have to compromise. Well, this is one of those times. When we got planning permission for the extension, one of the conditions was that the floor of the kitchen would be concrete. Given that we were building down a level and the Perth area is liable to flooding, we conceded on this point but decided to make it feature. When the concrete was poured, we scattered recycled glass chuckies with a view to sanding them down and sealing to create a funky kitchen floor.

That was Plan A. Being, admittedly, novices at this we misjudged the timing and added the glass too late. As the concrete dried, the chuckies rose to the surface and our perfectly flat floor became pocked. We cleared the loose chuckies and held out hope that the remaining ones were deeper set and would shine up nicely when sanded. But we underestimated the power of glass. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that they broke the industrial strength sander but they certainly held their own. When we gave up on it as a bad job we were left with a green and grey lunar landscape.

One evening, while wilfing on the internet, I stumbled upon our Plan B - a clear resin floor covering with recycled glass screed in a choice of colours, pre-mixed and ready to pour. And then I lost it. We have wasted many hours online searching for this site (which I could have sworn I’d bookmarked) to no avail. If anyone out there knows of which I speak, please let us know and soon. We haven’t quite given up hope, but we’re close.

We started researching alternatives and came up with Plan C – marmoleum. Linoleum, marmoleum’s more industrial cousin, is often used as a generic term for vinyl but they couldn’t be more different. Vinyl is basically plastic so it uses petroleum products in its manufacture and will never biodegrade. While often used as a more allergy-friendly replacement for carpet, it is not recommended by the British Allergy Foundation because of the harmful chemicals it contains. Linoleum on the other hand is made from all natural materials – the word lino comes from linseed. It is everything that vinyl isn’t but to the casual observer there is no obvious difference once laid. This is where the budget comes in – the difference is in the price. Not only is marmoleum more expensive, it is much trickier to fit and requires specialist tools.

Now, Donald’s Dad is in the trade and he has very generously offered to provide our flooring – which makes a big difference to our budget. He was happy to source cork flooring for the kids’ rooms – cork being possibly the most sustainable floor covering there is (more on which later). He was able to source marmoleum (it is manufactured in Fife) but it was a big ask – he hadn’t fitted it before and didn’t have the tools. So we looked for Plan D – would the cork work in the kitchen? No, he said, not where it’s likely to get wet. Plan E was recycled plastic tiles but we couldn’t find them in anything other than bright industrial colours. As the floor was so uneven, before we could lay anything we had to use a self-levelling screed which raised the level of the floor. This meant we couldn’t consider local stone or tiles as it would make the floor too high. And then there was vinyl.

Even if someone out there comes good with the recycled glass resin, it’s too late now that the screed is laid. We have made our compromise, chosen a vinyl that looks vaguely like stone and Donald’s Dad has ordered it. We console ourselves with the thoughts that a/ this means we will finally be able to install our kitchen and b/ as easy to fit as it is, vinyl is also easy to remove should we find our dream floor in the future. There are now vinyl recycling schemes so it won’t end up in landfill or we could freecycle it.

We are very happy with the kids’ floors. Cork has a bad name due to the dodgy ’70s tiles we all grew up with but it has since undergone something of a reinvention. It is now available in a variety of natural shades and patterns and is laid in click-lock planks (like laminate). It is soft and bouncy underfoot, making it ideal for the rough and tumble of kids, and it has great sound insulation. Where cork stands out from other wood flooring is its sustainability. Our cork flooring comes from Portuguese Cork Oak. The trees are not harvested but coppiced which means that new growth is removed to make the cork while the tree is left to grow and absorb carbon – a bit ‘eating your cake and having it too’. We’ll post photos of the cork when its laid. Once the flooring is down it will really start to feel like home.

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That was the week that…

September 7, 2008 · Filed under Rants · Tagged , , , ,

… the North Pole became circumnavigable for the first time in human history. The shocking images of the receding ice mass, taken by NASA, showed both the north east and west passages open at the same time – an unprecedented occurence. Surely, finally, this should be accepted as hard evidence that climate change is happening and fast. To America and Russia, it represents an opportunity – to map the floor of the Arctic Sea for oil and gas exploration.

… in response to rising sea levels, the planet’s small island nations are preparing to table a joint resolution at the UN, calling for urgent action on climate change. Small islands such as Papua New Guinea and the Maldives are at the forefront of the effects of climate change – continued rises in sea level threaten them with submersion. To support their efforts, you can sign an online petition at http://www.avaaz.org/en/sos_small_islands/50.php.

… America’s Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was revealed as pro-drilling for oil in Alaska’s national parks and anti-laws to protect polar bears as an endangered species. This woman and her values could soon be leading the most powerful nation in the world, already one of the biggest obstacles to international action on climate change.

… In Britain, Gordon Brown announced that he plans to tackle rising fuel costs by taking on the ‘oil dictatorships’. His secret weapon? Insulation. While I applaud the Prime Minister on his decision not to give one-off payments to tackle fuel poverty in favour of long-term reduction in energy use, I have some questions for him. How many hoops will people have to jump through to get these grants? Or will they book New Labour form and be easy to apply for and proactively promoted directly to the people who need them the most – the elderly, young families and people on low incomes? And finally, what took him so long? He has had ten years as Chancellor to promote long-term fuel economy and he could have done it at a time when people weren’t feeling so hard done by. Now voters are in a bad mood – recession looming, fuel prices rising rapidly and the credit-happy lifestyle a distant memory – and want instant solutions. When it comes down to it, most people are easily bought and a short-term, one-off fuel payment or windfall tax would have been more popular than a long-term, this-is-what’s-good-for-you-whether-you-like-it-or-not solution. This man’s timing is woeful.

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The joys of hemp

September 5, 2008 · Filed under Eco tips, materials · Tagged ,

House building may not be the first thing that occurs to you when you think of hemp. Due to the fact that you can (apparently) smoke it, hemp has had a bad press so its commercial possibilities haven’t been fully explored. Hemp actually has a history of being really useful. Hemp ropes were used to scale mountains and to bind boats together until the early 20th century. It was the original material for artists’ canvas. It can be woven into fabric to make clothes. It also makes fantastic insulation.

Our first choice of wall insulation was straw. As a byproduct of farming, it is really low impact and incredibly cheap. Unfortunately it only comes in one size – bales. This would result in very thick walls and as our site is long and narrow would have reduced the living space of our rooms by about a metre. So we looked at other natural insulation material. Sheep’s wool, as a byproduct of the meat industry, wasn’t acceptable to the vegetarians in the family. It’s also relatively expensive – £9.50 per m2 compared to £6.50 for hemp. Warmcel is made from 100% recycled newspapers and is pumped into the walls but we couldn’t find a local supplier. British-grown hemp batts are supplied by Burden’s Builders Providers which made them the easiest option but the more we learnt about hemp, the more we loved it.

OK, there’s the ‘hur, hur’ value of having a house made of hemp but it really is an amazing resource. Commercial hemp crops are now grown in Britain and across Europe (but are still banned in the US) and are proving their eco credentials. They use far less water, fertiliser and pesticides than most crops, being unattractive to most insects and growing to 3-5 metres in a couple of months. As they grow they lock in carbon, creating a carbon sink even more efficient than trees. They are low impact in every sense. They may even hold the key to the biofuels issue.

From a building point of view, hemp has great thermal resistance and can be used in external and internal walls, floors, lofts and roofs. It also controls moisture, protects against fire, insects, fungus and vermin, and the strength of its structure means it doesn’t compress or slump once in place.  It has great acoustic properties – which means that once the kids are installed in their new rooms we shouldn’t hear them at all! The NBT hemp batts we used are available in different sizes and are designed to be compatible with the diffutherm system (see previous post). Hemp doesn’t have any of the nasties that trigger allergies and it has full lifecycle certification (see www.natureplus.org) which means that it is eco friendly from seed to disposal. And it smells good!

House full of hemp

House full of hemp

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Timber frame and the diffutherm system

September 3, 2008 · Filed under Eco tips, materials · Tagged , ,

When we moved onto this road in December last year, there were two extensions in progress. We broke ground in April and are nearly finished. The other two are still in progress. How did we get it done so quickly? Non-conventional construction methods. This does not mean that we employed dodgy practices or cut corners, we just didn’t opt for bricks and mortar. In fact, the old adage ‘it’s only bricks and mortar’ doesn’t apply to us at all. We’re going to have to invent a whole new lexicon for the eco builder – “well I know it’s just timber and hemp, but it’s home to me”.

The first and most important part of the house is the timber frame. This is the material of choice for most eco builders because a/ it’s sustainable and b/ it’s quick. Our joiner had 75% of the frame constructed and lying in the back garden within a week. Putting the whole thing together in place is like a giant flat-pack and takes more time than the actual construction but when it’s done you have the frame of your house – like a timber skeleton. The timber provides the structural integrity for the whole building. Even in conventional builds, where a timber frame is used with bricks, the bricks are only the facade, the timber is load-bearing. This probably comes as a surprise to many. We don’t tend to think of timber as strong and enduring the way we think of bricks and concrete. But there are many countries and cultures whose buildings are predominantly timber structures and there are timber buildings in Britain which are still standing after hundreds of years.

The key to timber’s longevity is making sure it’s weatherproof. This can be done with wood preserver, paint, charring – all of which require maintenance – or the aforementioned brick facade. We have chosen a relatively new method – the diffutherm system – which is supplied by Natural Building Technologies www.natural-building.co.uk and Burden’s Environmental Builders Merchants (nationwide). The system comprises Pavatex woodfibre boards, which are attached to the timber frame (after you have stuffed the walls with insulation – in our case hemp); Bayosan mineral render; reinforcing mesh and a finish coat of coarse grain render (similar to fine pebble dash).  When all the layers have been applied, the external walls are weatherproof, fire resistant, airtight and breathable. The system is also carbon-positive, meaning that the materials lock in more carbon than they use in construction – your very own carbon sink.

This system is a practical option for the self builder as it’s relatively fool-proof, cheaper than hiring a brickie and goes up quickly. Despite the rain hampering our efforts, we had it done in about two weeks. If you have two people on the job – one to mix the render while the other plasters – you’re laughing. You must allow a few days between each coat of render but by the time you’ve finished the other sides, your first side should be ready for the next coat. Here’s a step-by-step in pictures:

One hemp-stuffed wall, one with woodfibre boards

One hemp-stuffed wall, one with woodfibre boards

Boards in place

Boards in place

 

Applying the first layer of render

Applying the first layer of render

 

The mesh reinforcement goes on between layers of render

The mesh reinforcement goes on between layers of render

Team work - one mixer, one plasterer

Team work - one mixer, one plasterer

The coarse grain layer goes on over the render
The coarse grain layer goes on over the render

 

 

 

 

 

Wall showing the different stages of diffutherm method. Note the corner beads on the joint.

Wall showing the different stages of diffutherm method. Note the corner beads on the joint.

 

 

 

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A house revealed

September 2, 2008 · Filed under State of our house · Tagged ,

The scaffolding was taken away today. This is a milestone for us – we actually have a house as opposed to a building site. To make the most of the scaffolding while we had it (and between showers) Donald plastered and rendered the wood fibre boards from the first floor up, reasoning that he could do the ground floor when it was gone. So we now have an extension that looks like a finished house on top and a bit like a soggy cardboard box at the bottom!

Before

Before

After

After

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the moment our attention is focused indoors, trying to get the kids’ rooms habitable. We moved them in to one of them anyway – we all needed some space - but they are bare walled and floored. Our aim for this week is to order the flooring, seal the plasterboard and make a start on the kitchen – so it may be a while before the ground floor gets plastered. Hopefully before the next monsoon. Officially Scotland just experienced its wettest summer in 60 years. Felt like it too.

Tomorrow I’ll actually post some useful information – about the technique used for the external walls. Stay tuned.

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