No, we're fine, honestly

Isn't this a nice and restful photograph? Soothing to the soul and all that? It's not the eco house that's for sure because that is neither soothing, restful, nor indeed inhabitable at the moment. This photo is close to where I'm hanging out at the moment because the eco house is having both snagging work done in (literally) every room and essential repairs done to spaces like the kitchen, office and all the loos. My better half is camping back on planet eco but I have weighed up the choice between staying sane or keeping a stiff upper lip and picked the former so courtesy of that nice Mr Branson I've fled to the uttermost east until it's all over.

Snagging work you expect when you've been in a new build after a while, but the other work has been hugely disruptive so here's a chance to experience a little schadenfreude to brighten your day, with the proviso (from my OH) that I must keep it objective, not subjective.

For some reason we have needed a new hot water cylinder because we had the wrong sort. When I get back west I will post a photo of the right sort of hot water cylinder and then we can marvel at the improvement. Replacing a hot water cylinder that's attached to solar thermal tubes is more of a palaver than it would be in a normal house: I was told it would take two days at most and so far it's taken four. I believe that the solar thermal had to be drained down before the cylinder was replaced and today it's due to be recommissioned by the firm that installed the solar in the first place. As I've said before, though, this blog is about the experience of the house so whatever the technicalities this meant no hot water from first thing on day one until late on day two. It also meant clearing one of only two storage spaces in the house as that is where the cylinder lives and as that cupboard is in the corner of the office that's meant the office has so far been out of action for four days (and counting).

Well, you can manage without hot water for a couple of days and if you can't answer emails or the phone it's not the end of the world when you work from home** but not having flushing loos is more of an issue. The rainwater harvester first became a problem back in November when we moved in and started using the loos so we just switched it to bypass the harvester tank and flushed the loos with mains water instead. On day two of this exercise the harvester was sorted and it was back to recycled water for the loos again. Yesterday (day three) it stopped working again and someone is coming back again today (day four). I may keep you posted on this but, alternatively, if it keeps failing and I need to go back to non-recycled water, I may just keep quiet to avoid more disruption to my life, who knows?

OK so despite the loos working intermittently, ditto hot water and not being able to reach the phones or computer without climbing over the contents of the only proper cupboard in the house things are still basically OK on planet eco are they? Alas no, let's now think about the kitchen where the worktop needs replacing and for that I blame myself entirely. There was the tiniest, most miniscule gap where the two sections of worktop joined and, like a fool, I mentioned this as water was getting in (because the join was within 15cm of the sink). The result was that the whole worktop needed replacing, but I wasn't to worry because that would take half a day at most. Sadly, confirming my view that we don't all live on the same planet (let alone the whole men-women-Venus-Mars thing) I hadn't realised we were talking about Plutonian, not Earth days (yes, I know it's been demoted but nothing else fits). Since day minus one the contents of all the kitchen units below the worktop have been stacked in a bedroom and for two days the cooker and kitchen have been out of action.

So, as I sit and watch the chickens outside the window and the house martins darting over the pond let's spare a thought for the eco house unable to provide water, loos or cooking facilities. Henceforth I will be very cautious about what I report and when asked how things are going I will simply take the advice a clergyperson gave me many years ago and reply, as Steven Tyler would say "fine".

PS: Many thanks to everyone who offered me an English version of the MVHR manual after my last post - it came in very handy even if I wasn't sure the Boolean logic it contained made sense!

** Sarcasm: Your body's natural defense against stupid. 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sarcasm

Some like it hot? Data up to the solstice

Last time I posted temperature data was in April and it covered the period from the winter solstice to the spring equinox (for an explanation of the solstices take a look at the BBC's website here). We've now got data for the next three months as the sun reached its highest point in the sky. Of course this has also coincided with pretty dismal weather here in the UK but we are getting a bit of a feel for the pros and cons of this particular house so first I'll give you the scientific data and then I'll give you the low-down on what that data feels like. 

Before I begin, I ought to say that I do love this house and largely enjoy its quirkiness, but as a recent school visitor said, houses are for living in, so apologies in advance to any readers who won't be happy with what I say.

Here's the temperature data from the winter to summer solstice. We've changed the graph to show fortnightly averages to make it fit on one page:

As before the green bars show the amount of energy we've generated (so you can see how much heat we got from the sun that day) and the blue, orange and red lines show the floor temperatures but I've changed the external temperature record to a purple line so the graph is clearer. 

If you compare the peaks at the beginning of January, end of March and end of May you can clearly see how much stronger the sun is as we approach the solstice and each peak pushes the internal temperature of the house up to a new plateau. In the winter the internal temperature was running at an average of 18-19°C, by the time of the equinox in March it was 20-21°C and by the end of June this had become 22-23°C.

In the winter the house felt too cold and we assumed this was because it was drying out after the build so we were delighted when the weather warmed in the spring and we were able to switch off the heating boost but by the end of May I was tweeting that we were having problems with cooling the house and this has been a big issue now for a couple of months.

If you google "passivhaus overheating"  there are a number of sites that tell you that passive houses don't overheat and, technically, this house doesn't very often because the point at which overheating is defined seems to be when the internal temperature exceeds 25°C (that's 77°C in old money). But, whilst our internal averages have been in the low 20s Celsius we have had days when several days of sunshine or the combination of sunshine and high temperatures outside has caused the temperature on the top floor to rise to 25 and beyond. It may not technically be overheating but you try sleeping in 25° heat when you've been trained for donkey's years to keep your house thermostat on 21° to save the planet!

I jokingly posted on twitter that our house may be passive but we're having to be rather actively engaged with it and that's certainly been the case since it started warming up. We've obviously been keeping the blinds closed to exclude direct sunlight (and, irritatingly, block the views of my garden) but that wasn't enough. We've sought advice about how to cool it down but there's a lot of advice out there and what works in theory doesn't necessarily work in practice in this particular house and, in the process, we've discovered ancecdotally, about other passive houses experiencing similar problems. 

There have been elements of farce involved in reaching a modus vivendi with the house temperatures but at least the Jubilee and Olympics have bought me time by postponing summer. One suggestion was that we turn off the MVHR and open the windows to cool the house down. I tried that but we ended up with the 'wet' areas of the house (the bathrooms and utility room) reaching jungle levels of humidity so I battled through the lianas and leeches to the MVHR control panel and abandoned that idea. Another suggestion was to switch the MVHR to summer bypass mode. Sadly we didn't know what that meant so I wasted a day or so working it out and then trying to find out how to do it as the only manual we'd been given was all auf Deutsch. Well, you can't say you don't learn stuff in this house - not just physics and engineering but linguistics too. With a combination of German dictionaries, google and sheer bloody-mindedness, I managed to sort that but it only reduced the temperature by half a degree and I'm not even convinced that it was a key factor in that. So, at the moment, the only thing that is working is to open as many windows as we can on the top floor without the rain pouring in and keep the MVHR on the lowest possible summer bypass temperature. With all that going on the temperature on the top floor is now about 23°C and it's not as warm as I'd like downstairs so any sensible suggestions about how to vent the house further will be gratefully received.

This house only has external shading on the south facing windows and this, I think, is one of our key problems. We had to have rooflights on the top floors to counter planning objections and they only have internal blinds on the south-facing roof so some heat obviously gets into the top floor through this route. In addition, since May, the sun has been high enough in the sky to shine through the rooflights on the north side of the house and they have no shading at all. We are also finding that a lot of heat has been coming through the east and west windows since the equinox so probably those windows needed external shading too.

So, architects/engineers reading this, may I suggest some things to consider when planning a passivhaus?

1. Please put external shades on all the windows
2. Don't make a three-storey house unless you've got very efficient ventilation for the top storey
3. Consider designing the house upside down - you want bedrooms to be cool and living rooms to be warm so perhaps bedrooms should be on the lowest floor and the living rooms at the top floor. Thus, ideally, you should be designing houses for south-facing slopes which are accessed from above not below!
4. Give people manuals in their native tongue unless you feel that self-improvement is an integral part of living with your design

Next time I post I will write about the financial efficacy of the solar panels and probably be busting a few myths but I will wait and see what, if anything, we get in the way of our first FIT payment compared to the amount of electricity we've been generating.... I might be pleasantly surprised but don't hold your breath!

And because all the above may be received as criticism rather than the words of a critical friend let's finish with a pretty picture of the house because it may be a bit mad, but I am rather fond of it.

For copyright info on the image of Stonehenge see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehenge2007_07_30.jpg