Housing & Building

Comment by steve charter on June 4, 2008 at 14:11

Hi there. We'll get some material together for and from this group in the not too distant future. For the moment, we can say that it will address:
a) the existing housing and building stock: which is responsible 25% of UK carbon emissions - and probably a higher proportion of FR emissions, as we don't have much industry or commercial development in FR;
b) new build housing, commercial and public buildings;
We'll be looking at mechanisms and 'vehicles' to create change and significant improvement in existing homes and the building stock, as well as how to create local exemplar 'zero carbon' or 'Passive House' projects, and retro-fit exemplars. We'll also look at the local skills, knowledge and experience to achieve this.
Healthy homes and healthy buildings is another important issue we'll address.
Some latest news: yesterday (3rd June) the Existing Homes Alliance was launched - this is very positive for the Transition Towns movement, as it's the first alliance of major organisations looking at how local communities can significant reduce the carbon footprint of existing homes - see www.existinghomesalliance.org
See you around ...
Steve

Comment by BradScott on June 7, 2008 at 19:03

Do come and talk to the village hall management committee at the Twinning Fun Day next weekend on Foresters Green. We're very keen to hear any vision for the hall and how we might get there. It certainly needs a new roof, but it is golden opportunity for grabbing the bull by the horns and changing an energy-ifficient building into a model for our village.

Comment by Laurence Green on February 22, 2009 at 9:03

A US prefab net-zero energy house is discussed at:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009437.html

Comment by Laurence Green on March 27, 2009 at 5:08

I have just a received a copy of a short report '2020 A UK Vision For Solar PV', produced by the UK Photovoltaic Manufacturers Association. Highlights are: Lowest estimate of possible capacity on all roofs in the UK is 105 TWh, while the UK's current consumption is about 400TWh. Ground mounted PV would add further capacity. Costs of installing PV are dropping as supply bottlenecks are removed and as grid prices rise, cost parity with the grid is expected in 2013 for households (mean of estimates). To see a copy, do contact me.

Comment by Laurence Green on June 9, 2009 at 17:48

RE-INVENTING PLASTERBOARD FOR THE AGE OF GLOBAL WARMING
Watch this 3 minute talk about Ecorock at this link.

Comment by tony lewin on May 5, 2010 at 9:20

Could this be a good project for Transition Forest Row to support?

The Natural Beekeeping Trust (http://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org), FR-based but now national in its reach, has already received Lottery funding for its beehive sanctuary at Plaw Hatch. Now they want to build a classroom/teaching block nearby, and will be applying for grant funding (not sure from where). They want this classroom to be totally sustainable, both in terms of building materials (local wood?) and energy. They want something about 7x7 metres to house about 20 people at any given time.

This strikes me as the perfect opportunity to implement a genuinely sustainable building that would be a great showcase for what we could pull together in terms of eco architecture and a green supply chain.

Ninette Sapir, Trust treasurer, says they have already received interest from Transition groups in Brixton and Scotland (I forget where) -- not in the building project but for talks on beekeeping. Again, we could perhaps appeal for skills across the Transition network.

Feedback please!
(I have also posted this on the Forum page)

Tony Lewin

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