House Planning Help Podcast

Ken Levenson from 475 High Performance Building Supply explains what overheating is, why it happens and how to deal with it.

Direct download: HPH064.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:55pm UTC

Doug King explains what smart energy systems are, how they work and whether we should be embracing them in our new homes.

Direct download: HPH063.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:40pm UTC

Building services engineer Alan Clarke explains what factors should be considered when choosing a heating system for a low energy home.

Direct download: HPH062.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:30pm UTC

If the idea of going 'off-grid' excites you, then perhaps now is a great time to be doing it. We live in an era where the cost of items such as solar panels is continually dropping and this is juxtaposed with fossil fuel reserves that deplete day by day.

While you may even be forced off-grid if you move to a remote location, does it make sense going off-grid if you have perfectly good access (for example, in a town or village)? And with different grids -transport, gas, water - which is the easiest to unplug from?!

In this discussion (which was one of our Google+ Hangouts) we discuss some of the issues surrounding going off-grid.

The Panel

Mike Coe, who lives in the Cropthorne Autonomous House (and was our guest in episode 54).

Paul Scheckel, author of The Home Energy Diet and The Homeowner's Energy Handbook.

Ken Silverstein, an business journalist who specialises in writing about energy

Direct download: HPH061.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:46pm UTC

Graham Hunter from Parity Projects conducts an energy assessment of a country house. He talks through the process as he goes about it and explains how the collected data will be used.

Direct download: HPH060.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:58am UTC

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