Zero Carbon House - Birmingham - a Q50 Air permeability of 0.97m3/hr/m2

We’ve been delighted to have been working with John Christophers of Associated Architects on a unique zero carbon house built in inner city Birmingham, to meet the stringent requirements of Level 6 of the UK Code for Sustainable Homes. It’s an eco-house that will produce at least as much energy as it consumes, and it’s built around an existing house!

This family home is an extension of a redbrick Victorian house, converting a 2-bedroom semi-detached into a 4-bedroom dwelling with a studio loft. It extends upwards and outwards: upwards to catch the sun otherwise obscured by a taller neighbouring house, backwards to create a 2-storey suntrap overlooking the garden, sideways for more space. The original 1840 brick house is preserved, as are the mature ash trees in the garden. Integration with the surroundings is important, and the design takes full account of the neighbouring architecture.

Due to the complexity of the build and the refurbishment, the airtight detailing was a subject of much debate and consideration by John and our Technical Engineer Niall Crosson. However, once John had incorporated this into the plans, the construction team from Spellar Metcalfe, headed up by on site airtight champion Dell Brown stepped into action and we are delighted with their recent airtight result of 0.97m3/hr/m2, as John reports that’s more than 10 times better than regulations & 28 times better than the UK average.

It really shows the advantages of stringent detailing for airtightness at the design stage, followed by on site training which we conducted with the Spellar Metcalfe team to fully accustom them with the pro clima range of products and critical junctions to watch out for. But most importantly it’s having someone appointed on site like Dell who was considering airtightness all the time, and making sure that follow on trades didn’t compromise the airtight sealing work already conducted. Well done guys!

You can follow progress on the Zero Carbon House which also has details of their twitter site.

Update Zero Carbon House has recently featured on BBC Birmingham