House Planning Help Podcast

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!

Direct download: HPH050.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:18am UTC

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

Direct download: HPH049.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:45am UTC

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.

Direct download: HPH048.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:01pm UTC

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.

Direct download: HPH047.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:09pm UTC

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.

Direct download: HPH046.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:54am UTC

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.

Direct download: HPH045.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:46am UTC

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.

Direct download: HPH044.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:25pm UTC

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

Direct download: HPH043.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:42am UTC

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.

Direct download: HPH042.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:55pm UTC

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.

Direct download: HPH041.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:31pm UTC