BC Visit 17th/18th Jan
Testing out monitoring kit now that the house is less full of people. All works fine but installation was more organised than expected and all pulse meters are close together in services cupboard. this is a minor problem involving more wiring than expected.
Pulse block for gas meter has vanished so new one on order, and was tricky to get solarimeter into plane of solar array, along with location of external temp and RH so, a few more adjustments to the system will need to be made after the tenant has moved in and settled on furniture locations.
BC visit 14th Jan _ Launch Day
House open for visitors, all systems in and working, house looking good, just a few minor bits to do before hand over. About 30-40 visitors during the day, i would estimate, the services cupboard attracted most interest i would say
services cupboard
Visitors commenting with the architect on the external insulation system
BC visit 6th Jan 2011
Met Romeo from Rotex who was commissioning Rotex unit, Billy the plumber was commissioning Maico unit also so the services cupboard was full.
rotex unit is not that easy to get calibrated, odd in that it doesn’t have a room thermostat.
Possible issue of oversizing of boiler in Rotex, apparently it winds down to 8kW but this is perhaps high given expected heat loss of house.
Shower waste water heat recovery unit in place, discussion about how they may be best used in swimming pool showers where flow of waste water is high but highly dependent on usage of hot water as to payback time…
house very nearly finished now.
Visit 14th Dec 2011 BC
A quick visit today to see how the services are connected.
Overall the house is approaching completion, with doors being fitted, skirting boards fitted, final painting coats being applied upstairs and kitchen part-fitted. The position of the electricity meter was under discussion for some time, and has now been fixed under the stairs, it looks to me like the secondary gas and water meters have yet to be positioned and fitted.
The services are in place and largely plumbed in but not finalised yet, i can see heat meters are connected.
Scaffolding has gone.
The porch is structurally complete, with the inner door being the Passivhaus standard, the outer door in keeping with the street.
BC Visit November 19th 2010
I visited today with Justin Bere of Bere Architects http://www.bere.co.uk/. The house is pretty much sealed now, save the front door. Most of the plastering has been completed, the outside rendering on the external insulation looks bright and white. The front room at the top now feels noticeably smaller now the internal insulation is complete.
Plasterer agreed that lime plaster can be brittle and damaged easily, due to the slow drying process risk of damage must be higher, can be dented for several days.
Justin pointed out that external brickwork being visible is not a good reason for planners to deny the use of external insulation, especially if the area already has homes that have painted brick or rendered brick on the front facade already.
In the “plant room”, the Maico MVHR system looks big with silencers, heat exchanger and heater battery all helping to fill up the space. The Rotex unit is placed but not plumbed in yet, also looks big.
Maico MVHR unit
PassivTerrace Open Day! 25th Nov
On Thur 25th Nov the PassivTerrace will be open to visitors 1-4 pm and it will be 10 people at any one time entrance.
The work is now in the final stages towards completion, so it is still possible to see construction and services details.
Please come along: the design team will be on hand to discuss the project with you.
If you are interested please send an e-mail to prestia.elisa+passivterrace@gmail.com with subject: PassivTerrace Address, you will receive an automated response with the exact address.
EP Visit 3rd Nov
On the 3rd November the design team and the tenants met on site to see the work progress. They then moved to Sandwood office to discuss other issues.
By this date the ground floor had been poured and insulated with 250mm insulation to give a U-value of 0.115 w/m2K:
insulation over ground floor slab
External insulation to rear facade had been placed:
detail of external insulation cut for rear door opening
Windows to the front of the house had been placed:
bay-window in the living room
The two remaining windows are due to be delivered next week, so hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to document how they are fitted with the membrane.
BC visit 21 October
Visited with Infrared camera with aim to check if any thermal issues with party wall. Really cold morning so whole wall cold but evenly cold suggesting construction was consistent and that the assumed construction of the party wall, namely solid brick was correct.
One spot had a clear cold bridge, was wet plaster also, this area will be insulated. The spot is at the top of the wall above the top of the stairs. See photos, one in visible, one in infra-red.
Main purpose of visit was to discuss detailed placing of monitoring equipment. Each monitoring node will have an associated plug socket for the charger. The charger to be charging at all times, the node to be at 1500mm above finished floor, with power cable inside wall trunking. One in back bedroom, one in utility cupboard area, one in living room, one in kitchen and one in roof space. Main PC to be on panel at bottom of stairs also with socket, possibility of fixing touch screen, funds permitting and when all systems commissioned and working.
The relative humidity sensors were discussed and one placed. The aim of these is to see how the breathing construciotn works in practice. The sensor itself to go between the insulation and the wall for the three types of insulation, 1) internal sheepswool on external walls, 2) internal gutex on party walls, 3) external render system on external walls. Stand alone dataloggers with sensors on wires, the datalogger and protruding wires to be wrapped ready for final finishing at end of job.
Some discussion about the jablite floor insulation. This requires fitting to the slab, as the slab is not perfectly level, solution might be to have a 50mm screed but this would require more time and cost so perhaps the fitting the jablite is the cheaper option.
The concrete “pour” for the floor was more of a concrete “transport by wheel barrow”, this was a compromise, between the extra cost required for concrete pump, extra space in residential street to allow this to happen and convenience of 3 hours of people wheeling wheelbarrows full of concrete. The total volume of concrete used was considered greater than volume of hardcore required but this ratio would be a function of the volume of the underfloor void, to my eye i would say the volume of hardcore, concrete and jablite insulation were similar.
A photo of the proclima membrane at the joint with the ground floor internal sheepswool insulation is also shown.
Videos from this visit, include
VIDEO LINK the solar thermal panels from Rotex that were installed this week,
VIDEO LINK a laser level used to check the height of the floor insulation.
VIDEO LINK the plasterboard surface of the 300mm roof insulation on the sloping roof in the back bedroom,
relative humidity sensor placing VIDEO LINK
BC visit 14th October
A colleague, Ian Ridley and I visited the site in the morning. Paul Archer was there. We delivered a box of meters to be installed (gas, water, electric, 2 heat meters). Also we were deciding on monitoring of relative humidity on the cold side of the insulation at several points.
The Gutex boards were mainly completely fitted, using mechanical fixings, something like a giant rawlplug. Lime plaster scratch coat was still soft a few days after plastering. Overall there is a five week schedule from raw wall to insulated and plaster finished wall, compared to a 2 day schedule for drylining type insulation. Comment was, this was long but would be ok for a build of several houses, but for a single one meant delays.
The concrete floor has been poured and set ready for Jablite insulation. Seeing the thickness of this gives a clear feel for how much the volume of this house will be reduced by the insulation.
Cable ducts will be installed within the plaster for monitoring equipment.
One party wall by the stairs will not be insulated and could be a cold wall if there is an unfilled cavity. Infra Red camera could be used to check this next week.
I took two videos, one of the gutex and lime plaster the other of how one piece of the ceiling will be insulated. Click here http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=&release=108727814
and here
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=&release=108728642
Some photos below
Jablite 150mm thick for rear, and 3oomm for front part of house. Thermafleece, 100mm thick
Anne Thorne Architects – Site Diary Week 05
Wood-fibre insulation is being installed to party walls. A lime-hemp plaster is being used to adhere the boards to the walls which have been given a scratch coat and levelled / repaired where needed.
This rear layer of plaster is part of the air-tight layer.
It is important that there are no air gaps between or behind the insulation boards to protect against the formation of condensation in air pockets.
The lime plasters (with no cement) take longer to dry out, which has to be considered in the programme of the works – a total of 5 weeks. So we need to ensure that there is plenty of ventilation in the building whilst the works are going on to aid the drying out process.
The Leca (expanded lightweight clay aggregate) has been delivered to site – this will be used to fill the chimneys after they’ve been swept next week.
Concrete floor was beginning to be poured as I was on site, and once complete, all the structural works will be complete. The roofer is currently on site, and the plumber will be on site next week to work with the roofer to install the supports for the solar thermal panels that face south on the rear roof slope.
Frustratingly, we’ve been told by the manufacturer that the window delivery date has been delayed by 1 week, which is very frustrating – alot of detailing relays on the window installation in terms of air-tightness and external insulation installation. This puts alot of pressure on the final fews weeks of the programme to finish on target.
