My thoughts on choice

This blog has one aim and that is to help those aspiring to build an 'environmental' house make those important decisions easier by learning from my mistakes.... why reinvent the wheel?

I'm not a qualified expert and do not call myself any type of consultant.  I do think that I have more knowledge than quite a few people mainly due to a genuine interest (bordering on spog) and I project managed the build of the Longhouse at Mill on the Brue in 2004/2005.  But that is whole other story...

The Longhouse at Mill on the Brue

I have decided over the past few months or even years of researching building materials that we in fact have far too much choice in the whole subject matter (have a look at www.greenbuildingforum.com for a read that can take a huge amount of time and if you're not careful come away with a headache).  Dare I suggest that in times gone by we used the easiest and most local material available which made the whole process relatively simple.  However we know that in turn this constraint in materials meant local an local style which is fine until you want a little more individuality or better insulation or a different way of living in our homes rather than the traditional compartmentalised living rooms.

Ok, back to the question in hand what do we want to build our house with?  Well our 1/4 acre has just fallen into the extended Bruton conservation area so this may throw up a few constraints later on in the planning process.  To answer the question I still, after over five months of going through the design process don't know what we're going to build the house with.  It's getting to the point of needing to make a decision but not until we are happy with the general layout of the floor plans and the facade of the house that not going to happen.  I seem to be jumping which is not the intention!

The choices are in fact relatively simple when you list them down: -

1. Block work - i.e. breeze block, insulation, breeze block is the normal / traditional or what most people have had their houses built with over the past 50 years.
2. Soft wood timber frame - over the past 20 + years the majority of large housing developments have gone down this route.  Quick construction time, cheaper than 1. but less thermal mass.  So it can warm up very quickly in the summer and then doesn't retain any heat in the winter.
3. Terracotta bricks - quick construction, good insulative properties, lets the house breath (water vapour out which I think has to be a good thing).
4. Straw - cheap material, good insulative properties but how many old houses have been built by straw bales?  Will they last many years?
5. Cob - cheap material, construction time long time (but I have heard of interesting methods speeding up the time).

After that you just increase the amount of insulation to the highest you can afford....

Ok if you're being really green I think you also need to consider the amount of energy the material it has taken to make.  So breeze block is high and soft wood is low.

The other consideration is nasty chemicals which can then be released into the atmosphere.  Apparently the high density foam (the bi-product of the petro chemical industry) is now considerably better than it used to be.