Personal story:

We moved to Cambridge and into this house in 2002, at that time we had only one child. Since then I’ve trained to be a midwife, and work a busy shift pattern a short cycle ride away at the Rosie Hospital. My husband has a daily commute to his job in London. We now have two children – one at secondary school and one at primary school.

After my mother-in-law died we inherited some money and that prompted some ‘blue moon’ thinking about how we could improve our home.

Motivations:

We knew we wanted enough space to all sit around the kitchen table comfortably and to entertain friends – something that had become more difficult as our children grew (in number and size!). We didn’t want to move to a bigger property that would become too big for us as our children left home. We knew that the key to staying put was decluttering and creating better storage and more useable space as well as making a kitchen extension.

Alongside the extension and general improvements, we knew there would never be a better time to insulate the house and improve the draughtproofing. We started to look at all our renovation plans from the point of view of creating a insulated ‘envelope’ for the solid walls, loft and floors. Our main motivation was reducing our carbon footprint by reducing heat losses.

We wanted to reduce the embodied energy in the building materials where we could, to reduce carbon footprint. We also wanted to reduce waste as much as possible and so the build contains a lot of reused, reclaimed, recycled content and naturally low-carbon materials.

We also wanted to create a house that ‘worked’ – was easy to keep clean and tidy, and supported a lower carbon lifestyle – so there’s space designed for drying clothes, park bikes and grow food.

Measures installed in detail:

• PUR insulation to sloped ceilings
• Condensing Gas Boiler, all radiators have TRVs
• Double-glazed wooden sash windows, weather sealed
• New external doors, with cork  thermal core
• Draught proofing  throughout – No letter box (mail box instead), floor board gaps sealed with Draughtex
• 90mm PUR floor insulation
• Internal wall insulation: mix of PUR (75mm) and aerogel (29mm/49mm) depending on space
• External wall insulation: Wall Reform 2 system (60mm PUR + 15mm insulating render)
• 280mm Rockwool loft insulation
• CFL and LEDs throughout
• Low carbon materials: reuse (bricks, windows, gate, wood panelling, kitchen carcasses), reclaimed (floor boards), recycled content (kitchen worktop, bathroom tiles), low carbon/sustainable source (UK wool carpet, natural rubber flooring, cork flooring)
• 2kWp Solar PV system
• Sun pipe on landing and glass partition to make stairs a ‘light well’ into rear living room
• Wood burning stove
• Water saving devices include; dual flush cistern; pulse eco shower head, aerating sink and basin taps, 350 litres rainwater storage for garden
• Low energy living supported – bike storage, wood storage, undercover-outside laundry drying area, edible garden

Project update:

I’m involved in Open Eco Home, organised Cambridge Carbon Footprint this year:

opening on Sunday 14th September and Saturday 20th September.

You can book for a tour of Ross Street via the Superhomes booking facility, and for all the houses involved in Open Eco Homes (including Ross Street) via http://openecohomes.org/

both events can be booked through Cambridge Carbon Footprint. For more information and to book a place send an email to info@cambridgecarbonfootprint.org or call us on 01223 851616. Please mention that you heard about the event from the SuperHomes website.

Contact this homeowner