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PRO INSTALLER NOVEMBER 2015
PRO NEWS
@proinstaller1
Helping generate energy
for eco-house project
Two years ago, Jo and Andy Thompson were living in social housing at Unity Gardens,
Long Sutton, Lincolnshire one of the UK’s first zero-carbon housing developments.
They had resigned themselves to being lifelong
renters, having no spare
cash for a deposit; buying
or even building their own
home was a pipe dream.
“We would watch TV programmes like Grand Designs, but they were utterly
depressing because everyone had such big budgets,”
says Andy.
Then one day, the dream of
owning their own home became
more of a reality.
“Jo’s mother moved into a
semi-detached house in South
Lincolnshire and was sitting outside one day wondering how she
would look after the huge garden
as she got older.”
In June 2012, Jo and Andy did
some sums and took the plunge
by offering to buy some of the
garden to build their own house.
Jo comments: “My mum was overjoyed when we offered to buy
the land – it was her chance to
help us and at the same time, our
chance to help her too.”
Eco friendly
“When it came to looking at
house designs, we were inspired
by the development that we used
to live in, which was eco-friendly
with no utility bills - and nice
and simple. We employed the
help of local Architect Dr Jerry
Harrall (www.drharrall.com) a
multi award winning designer of
eco-friendly developments.”
Jerry, a Chartered Architect,
developer and independent
researcher, qualified in 1995 and
has accumulated fourteen years
of first-hand experience designing, building, living, working in
and monitoring naturally heated,
naturally ventilated buildings. He
has now to his credit designed 14
buildings that hold UK’s highest
Energy Performance Certificates,
as well as the seven lowest air
pressure tests on record.
The Thompsons’ previous home,
Unity Gardens, is an award-win-
ning development created and
designed by Jerry, comprising
six carbon negative single-storey
dwellings in Lincolnshire. The development was the first near-autonomous housing scheme of its
kind and has achieved a Code
for Sustainable Homes Rating of
Level Four.
“Once Jerry had designed our
new home, which we’d named
‘FranklyBee’, he submitted the
plans – keeping it simple to avoid
any hold ups. We then sorted the
finance, applying for a self-build
mortgage,” continues Andy.
Jerry reflects on the Planning
process: “The first challenge came
after submitting the plans to
South Holland District Council.
The planners required a consensus as to whether to support the
application, due to the building
being classed as ‘modern architecture.’ Luckily, however, the same
local authority’s Building Control
team had a completely opposite
approach and championed the
designs from the onset.
“The issues arose as they were
focusing on what wasn’t in the
building as opposed to what was.
The house has no foundations,
being simply built on a garage
floor slab – and has no cavity
walls, no plasterboard and no
mechanical ventilation.”
The build took 12 months from
submitting the plans t