We bought the site, upon which a poor quality bungalow stood in 2012. Once we had secured planning permission the site was cleared, and the current building at 33 Bestwall Road, was completed in April 2015.
The house was erected by Hanse-Haus (for an explanation of their bespoke prefabricated designs follow the link). Hanse left us with a bare shell and we completed the fitting out and roofing. The building is constructed of prefabricated Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPS). It features triple glazing throughout, and a depth and quality of insulation that is near Passivhaus standard.
In addition to benefits inherent in a building of this type, the house featured:
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* LED lighting throughout
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* Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery
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* Rain water harvest to an underground tank, supplying toilets and washing machine water internally, and an outside tap
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* 25 Solar panels with Enphase micro inverters. These are properly integrated into the roof, not on rails. The micro inverters provide a number of performance and safety advantages over standard string inverters.
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* Heat pump-ready heat store tank, and zoned underfloor heating in every room (though at the moment we remain on a gas boiler, this is literally switched off for about 7 months of the year. The ambition is to come off gas, and have the supply disconnected in the next couple of years, but we’d like to be sure we’re not paying for peak- rate electricity for space heating in December and January before doing so)
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* A solar diverter to utilise surplus solar electricity by running the heat store’s immersion heaters
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* We also installed a spare cable whilst trenches and suchlike were open suitable to supply a 7KW heat pump (in anticipation of future developments)
In a second phase we added:
- * A Tesla Power Wall 2 home battery
- * Nissan Leaf EV(the choice of a LEAF was deliberate, because of its unique DC charging system)
- *A MyEnergi Zappi smart charger
In phase three we installed an Indra Bidirectional Car charger which will allow us to use the Leaf EV as a back up to the Powerwall battery to store our electricity. We are waiting for winter to see whether we can leave the gas boiler switched off, even at the coldest times.
For the future, as something of a sceptic about Air Source Heat pumps, and lacking the space for a ground source pump (I like tech with the minimum of moving parts, and stuff that can’t go wrong) we’re seriously considering adding a Zeb boiler https://www.tepeo.com/ to utilise any remaining surplus solar and off peak electricity to provide enough kilowatts of energy for space heating on the coldest days.
Open 21 September: Click on the links below to reserve your place:
Outside these times, you can please book a visit by phoning or sending a text to Alicia 07789486442.