Projects at a Glance:

Bracadale

This project involved the extension of a two bedroom house at the front side and rear encompassing the original house and doubling its size.
It was structured in timber frame and externally finished with a variety of materials; facing brickwork, rendering and vertically hung tiles

Conservation Suggestions:

Natural resources are in shorter supply, water availability is a major concern.

Conserve resources, especially water.

Install guttering and storage tank and collect rain water for garden irrigation and washing.
Turn off the tap when shaving or cleaning your teeth. The average faucet releases 13litres of water per minute.
Install short flush water closets.

Environment

Throughout the world there is pressure to preserve the environment; to slow and hopefully reverse the effects of global warming.

This has many facets, all generally aimed at conserving energy, the generation and use of which has been identified as the main cause of environmental deterioration.

The building process and the use of buildings are large consumers of energy and there is a drive to reduce the energy use in this process. New terminology is appearing to describe the aims and procedures; Carbon Zero, Carbon Sink, Sustainability, Eco-Construction are but a few.

In the building process, the choice of materials affects the design, detail and construction requirements of a building and its performance in terms of comfort, maintenance, heating and cooling costs during its lifetime.

Vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide and emits oxygen, a process very beneficial to the environment. Constructing buildings from timber grown in managed forests has many benefits, starting with its generation over many years in a forest, through the relatively low energy process of felling, transporting, sawing, grading, transporting and construction. After that the benefits of a timber framed house in its comfort and low energy use are well known. Reaching a Zero Carbon development with timber frame is achievable. It is not to be forgotten that the waste generated during the construction of a timber framed house is far less than with other materials.

It is estimated that 70% of people now live in timber framed houses. A 100m² timber framed house saves some 4 tonne of carbon equivalent from entering the atmosphere over that using other materials, the equivalent of driving 17000 km.

Already there exist many buildings constructed using concrete, bricks, render etc. whose existence has already caused damage to the environment. Many of these buildings continue to cause damage by high heating and cooling energy use. Obviously it makes sense to preserve these buildings but improve their energy use and comfort for their occupants by sensible modification of acoustic and thermal properties. Achievement of these using modern insulation materials installed onto the building either internally or externally and by the inclusion of solar water heating will have benefits for the environment. Other solar or atmospheric energy generating products are available from which to choose for specific situations.