House Planning Help Podcast

In this special episode Ben Adam-Smith explains why he wants to crowd-fund a documentary about airtightness, what it will entail and how you can help.

David Snell, author of Building Your Own Home, shares advice on acquiring land, building up a skilled and reliable team, and keeping contracts simple. He is currently building his 14th house!

David Rudlin from Urbed explains what collective custom build is and why it would be beneficial to build more houses this way.

Sarah Lonsdale, an eco columnist for The Telegraph, shares a list of 30 home improvements she has made to reduce energy bills, and save energy and water. Ultimately Sarah would like to build a new home (such as a Huf Haus or Passivhaus) but in the meantime she explains the benefits of incremental upgrades.

Ian McKay from BBM Sustainable Design shares how to find a property that will lend itself well to an eco retrofit. He also contrasts two very different projects, the retrofit of a 1960s terraced house and the upgrade of a Victorian villa from the 1890s.

Diana Woodward explains how her house was first modelled on a computer and then the 3D digital information was transformed into exact physical replicas. The components were fabricated out of WISA board on-site using a mobile manufacturing facility.

Upgrading your property so that it is more comfortable and costs less to run makes sense. If we're serious about tackling climate change then retrofitting has to be undertaken on a huge scale. So if it looks good on paper, why are very few people doing it? In this discussion (which was one of our Google+ Hangouts) we consider some of the barriers that may be putting people off.

Mark Siddall from LEAP (Low Energy Architectural Practice) explains the circumstances under which poor ventilation can occur and why the control strategy becomes increasingly important the more airtight the building is.

David and Penny Learmonth share their experience of building an ultra low energy home on a budget. They also project managed this themselves.

Fran Bradshaw from Anne Thorne Architects shares her experience of building an ultra low energy home using natural materials such as straw bales, lime render and clay plaster. The house is also aiming for the Passivhaus standard.

Ben Adam-Smith looks at some of the essentials that you need to understand if you are going to create an energy-efficient house. There is more detail in Ben's new e-book: Why Most People Don't Build Energy-Efficient Homes.

Martin Holladay from Green Building Advisor talks about the pros and cons of the Passivhaus standard. He also explains why he believes the German standard is not the best approach for the North American climate.

Mark Elton from Sustainable BY Design explains what a phased retrofit of a house entails and the steps necessary to make it a comprehensive set of measures. He also shares his views of which properties make the simplest and most cost effective retrofits.

Bronwyn Barry from One Sky Homes explains the evolution of windows and why modern windows are really pieces of equipment. She also shares what's involved when it comes to choosing high performance windows for a project.

Jason Orme, editor of Homebuilding & Renovating, shares some of the key challenges that self-builders face and what can be done to make sure they don't become pitfalls. He also explains how custom build might be a good option to explore for those who want a bespoke home but without the same level of risk.

Cath Hassell from ech2o consultants shares why saving water - particularly hot water - is something we should all be doing. She also explains how we can achieve this in our houses through a mixture of technical solutions and behaviour change. *A lot of the information in this episode is specific to the UK. This is because it became difficult to keep answering in general world terms because in each country it would be slightly different.*

Lloyd Alter, Managing Editor of TreeHugger, explains how worldwide trends in green building have developed. He also shares his tips for self build success as well as some pitfalls to avoid.

Architectural designer Wilf Meynell explains the concept of environmental design and why it is not the same thing as low energy design. He also shares how he has tried to balance these two approaches in one of his upcoming projects, Springfield House.

Douglas Kent from The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings explains how to look after period properties and what advances are being made with conservation techniques in order to achieve greater energy efficiency.

Tim Hulse from EcoVert Solutions explains what insulation is and why there are often trade-offs to be made when selecting insulation.

Architect, planner and author Graham Towers explains the fundamentals of housing density and why we really need to get it right in future developments.

Mark Wilson from BuildingDesignExpert.com shares why he believes there is no such thing as a sustainable material and why it is our environment we are really hoping to sustain.

Architect and author Sarah Susanka shares why scale is such an important aspect to consider when building a house. She also explains how a 'not so big' philosophy can be applied in many areas of our lives.

Mark Westcombe, one of the founding members of Lancaster Cohousing, explains the cohousing concept and why creating an intentional community like this has many benefits.

Mike Jacob from Trunk Low Energy Building provides an insight into the benefits of hiring a project manager for a house build. Also Ben Adam-Smith reflects on the UK Passivhaus Awards 2013.

Paul Jennings from Aldas explains why airtightness is an important factor to grasp when constructing an energy efficient home. He also shares how forward planning, attention to detail and teamwork are imperative for achieving good airtightness results.

Elrond Burrell from Architype helps bust some of the common myths that surround the Passivhaus standard.

Jonathan Hines from Architype explains the concept of eco-minimalism and also the very different approach that guides them as a business. We discover how this design philosophy has helped shape an exciting new scheme of 150 Passivhaus homes for the village of Kingstone, Herefordshire. One the day this podcast was published the development - in conjunction with ArchiHaus - was granted planning approval! N.B. Our interview with Jonathan was recorded on 20th March 2013.

Kingsley Barraclough shares his experience of building a house and explains why he decided to use structural insulated panels (SIPs).

Mark Saich from Green Building Solutions gives an insight into why straw bale building is becoming popular. He also addresses some of the issues that we may harbour around the safety and durability of this low impact and low carbon material.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh from Home Style Green explains some of the challenges of creating sustainable urban systems. He also shares his goals as a podcaster, including championing healthier, better homes for New Zealand.

Andy Simmonds from Simmonds Mills Architects explains ventilation in the home, why it's important and what the options are if you're looking to retrofit a property for energy efficiency.

Mark Brinkley considers why the UK has the smallest proportion of self build across Europe and what changes might need to occur if we wanted to adjust the balance. Mark shares why Germany's system is more likely to lead to higher standards and communities that embrace development.

London's Ecobuild has just concluded for another year and Ben Adam-Smith shares his experience of the event. In this episode he chats to four people he met there - Janet Cotterell from Passivhaus Homes, Jon Bootland from the Passivhaus Trust, Jo Gooding from the UK Cohousing Network and Robert Stern from Litmus Films.

Justin Broadbent from isoenergy explains what a ground source heat pump is and how it could be used as a solution to make a period property energy efficient.

What's more important - preserving heritage architecture or retrofitting it to high energy efficiency? In our first forum on a Google+ Hangout we discuss some of the issues. The Panel Writer and blogger Roger Hunt (who appeared in our 10th podcast) Writer and Passivhaus consultant Adam Dadeby from Passivhaus Homes (who appeared in our 5th podcast) Homeowner Ross Atkin (who has recently retrofitted his Victorian house)

Ben Adam-Smith shares an idea he has about using the Internet to communicate the need for incremental lifestyle change as an action to combat climate change. This one-off episode focusses on how you could use content marketing to get your message across. Cesar Abeid from The Construction Industry Podcast is Ben's guest and helps explain how content marketing works.

Bill Butcher from Green Building Store shares his approach to creating a low energy barn conversion by building a box within a box. Stirley Community Farm will meet the EnerPHit standard.

Jason and Lucy Reeve share what preparation was necessary to commission their new-build home and Ben Adam-Smith considers what's more important in renovation, preserving the past or creating a sustainable future.

Dr Derek Taylor from Altechnica weighs up the pros and cons of various renewable energy sources and shares his thoughts on whether you should be generating at home. He also talks about his role in creating one of the UK's most energy-efficient homes.

Dr Brenda Boardman reflects on the world's energy situation, climate change and the growing problem of fuel poverty. She gives practical advice on how this affects building or renovating a property.

Roger Hunt explains how to make a period property energy efficient without damaging the building or creating problems for yourself in the future. Also House Planning Help gets its first guest blogger, Paul Mallion from Conker Conservation.

Alex Rice, Senior Engineer at Green Tomato Energy, explains that there are few technical challenges that remain when retrofitting a period home into a low energy building and it is a case of how you apply those solutions to the given building.

Tom Pakenham from Green Tomato Energy describes the practical challenges of making a Victorian house energy efficient. Plus how passive house principles helped a Norwegian explorer in the 1890s.

Tahir Sharif talks about how he built up his knowledge in order to commission an energy efficient home, while Ben discovers some great thinking from the Home World Exhibition of 1981.

Ted Stevens, Chairman of the National Self Build Association in the UK, gives his advice on how to find a good plot of land at a reasonable price. Plus, why Almere in Holland could be a blueprint for other large scale self build developments across the world.

Adam Dadeby from Passivhaus Homes talks about some of the challenges he faced when retrofitting his own home to the Passivhaus standard. He's also co-author of a new book called The Passivhaus Handbook.

Dr Wolfgang Feist describes how better energy efficiency opens a path to making us less dependent on fossil fuels and we have that knowledge now.

Pat Wilkinson from Touchwood Homes reveals why he decided to build to the Passivhaus standard and there's a resource for young industry professionals who might just be completing their architecture degrees or building training etc.

Martin Evans from The Malthouse Consultancy talks about energy efficiency and Ben Adam-Smith sets up a consumer mastermind group on LinkedIn to collate the good and bad of house design.