Website upgrade

We're pleased to say we have now gone live with our new website which has a fresh look and simpler navigation:

www.touchwoodhomes.co.uk

Shortly we'll also update the website with our new projects from spring / summer this year - it has been a very busy time for us with many varied projects going up!

Weyhill project certified as Passivhaus Plus!

Our Weyhill project has now officially been certified as meeting the new Passivhaus Plus standard - we are one of the first 3 houses in the country to reach this new standard. The Plus standard has the Passivhaus very demanding minimal energy requirements to heat the building, aswell as the house also producing as much energy as it consumes.

Being Passivhaus, the building fabric requires minimal heating, and the heating system is very efficient. The little energy required for the building is equal to the energy produced on site by the large 10kWp PV roof  mounted PV system.

Our clients Ben and Elle are rightly very proud of their achievement in reaching the new plus standard:

We look forward to building more Passivhaus, Passivhaus Plus, and Passivhaus Premium homes in the future - which are set to become a mandatory EU requirement after 2021.

Hennerwood passivhaus drone footage

Whilst erecting our Hennerwood farm passivhaus project we produced drone footage of the timber frame. Please take a look at the footage of this stunning building in the Herefordshire countryside!

https://youtu.be/szOrF01-Kgg

Chief's Farm Cottage Passivhaus

We have just finished the erection of our Chief's Farm Cottage project in Essex. For this project Touchwood designed and installed the strip foundation with our special thermally bridge free detail, to create a very thermally efficient slab suitable for passivhaus. The image below shows the 300mm EPS insulation installed:

Following the powerfloat finished concrete slab on top of the EPS, we then installed the pre-cut timber frame, with our robust air tight board installed over the external surface. Unusually, this build has the airtight layer going under the roof structure, rather than having the roof warm side - our usual approach. This improved the surface area to volume ratio for passivhaus PHPP analysis, and avoids the client heating space that is not used - they didn't require vaulted ceilings in the upstairs rooms. See below some images of the timber frame:

We are now commencing install of the MVHR duct work, simply installed in the-cut holes, prior to hand over to the clients tradesman for the follow on works.

See below an image of the pre-cut duct routes in the frame. The MVHR system is modelled for acoustic performance, with silencers in the network as necessary. This unique integrated approach to MVHR and frame design allows all ducts to be within the floor cassette, where they do not need boxing out, and will have the space around them filled with Warmcel, creating near silent running,

We look forward to the project being finished and being added to our list of passivhaus certified homes.

Tatsfield dramatic modern flat roof home complete

Towards the end of September we completed the frame erection work on our Tatsfield project in Surrey, which is a modern flat roof home constructed on a dramatic sloping site, see below an architect rendering of the finished scheme;

 

We successfully designed out all steel in the structure, to minimise the cold bridging. Instead we utilised complex box beams, and extensive glulam beams, which in the large open plan upstairs area form a striking visual feature in the home.

We look forward to the scaffold being removed so that we can obtain some photos of this project which we are particularly proud of, in the mean time here are some drone images from the frame erection works.

Another Touchwood house achieves Passivhaus certification!

Our client's on our Porters project, which we completed 3 years ago recently decided to put the house through the Passivhaus certification process to formalise the performance of their home. The house was modelled with PHPP early on, but during the build the clients were focused on managing the build, so decided to leave the certification process till later.

We have a number of projects where clients take this approach - holding back on the formal certification (but recording evidence during the build) so that all their energies are on organising the self build tradesman and the like.

Porters build cost was just over £1000/m2, for a home that has a negative heating bill, this is a great example showing that passivhaus is affordable, it is mainly just a different approach to the build.

Passivhaus mentioned on Robert Llewellyn's Fully Charged!

The latest Fully Charged episode features passivhaus and low energy new builds - Robert Llewellyn explains them and the politics behind the lack of large uptake in the UK. No reason to not build one yourself though, get in touch, we have built many!

https://youtu.be/Ym8emBsYdMs

Interview with Lisa Jackson regarding her Touchwood Homes built passivhaus home

Ben Adam-Smith recently visited our Fox Barn passivhaus project in Hampshire (which we erected 2012) to talk through the build with the owner, Lisa Jackson.

Lisa explains the build process in detail along with the some useful advice regarding planning. She also explains our airtight frame construction, general advice regarding managing a self build and how comfortable living in a passivhaus is. Please visit Ben Adam-Smith's site to read / hear the blog:

http://www.houseplanninghelp.com/hph130-a-passivhaus-barn-that-embraces-contextual-design-with-lisa-jackson/

Curved wall home in Chesham

We are currently erecting our Chesham project, a new home featuring subtly curving external walls, and curving ridge beams.Curved walls and beams are no problem for our bespoke pre-cut system, any design is possible!

The curved external walls create a very complex floor cassette, which also has to incorporate the ducts for the Touchwood designed PAUL MVHR system. This complexity is achievable without problems though with our machine pre-cut frame system, the image below shows the floor cassette:

To match the external walls being curved, the design also requires curved glulam ridge beams so that the rafters end up the same length. The curved ridge beams are now installed, ready for rafters to be slotted in, the image below shows the curved ridge beams:

We enjoy the challenge working on these exciting cutting edge curved wall buildings!

Devon low energy house

A previous Touchwood customer (Colin) wrote to us today saying how amazing the performance of his Touchwood house has been over the winter months with regard to minimal heat demand:

"Still regarded by locals as "the best house in the village" and we remain absolutely delighted with everything. Dropped to -5 at night last week but never below 20 inside.  No woodburner lit (only twice for an hour each time) over two winters and no heating apart from one "timed" bathroom floor and similarly, a towel rail.  In duct heater has never come on!!"

With a high quality finish to the house, and extensive groundworks externally (garden walls and the like) the self build cost was £1480/m2. This for a house that now has very very low heating costs. If you're going to build a house, do it properly and build one that doesn't require endless fossil fuels (and so high running costs) to heat. Even if you're building the house to sell, low heating builds will be a marketable asset, and morally it's just plain wrong to build new houses with needless fossil fuel heating demands - when it isn't particularly more expensive to build an air tight and super insulated Touchwood House -  just a different approach.

Why doesn't the government force volume house builders to build this way via building regulations? Probably because the volume builders have such powerful lobby powers they dictate government policy (and they don't want to change from their current build methods). No doubt locking us into expensive fossil fuel heating means we always have to buy fuel - good for the fossil fuel companies short term - disastrous long term (global warming/energy security). The only option is to self build houses to the passivhaus standard, showing it can be done affordably - embarrass the government to get the volume builders to do the same!

Chepstow home nears completion!

Touchwood supplied the new timber frame super efficient home for a client in Chepstow that is now near completion. The building is constructed on a hill side so has complex groundworks, and a connection to an existing dilapidated stone structure on the site that has now become part of the house. 

Mr Francis sent the images below and commented:

Many thanks for all your help with everything.  Super pleased with the service from Touchwood, and how everything has turned out. Mr Francis, Chepstow 

Office phone number change

Please note that after a transfer period of a year our old office number is now closed - please only use the new one : 01279 842675

By the power of Logs!

The owners of the Touchwood built Porters house (on the gallery page) have been keeping a record of how many logs they use to provide all the heating and hot water requirements for their home, please see the graph below:

the graph, which runs from summer 2014 to summer 2015, shows the solar panels provide all hot water during the summer periods, and some contribution during autumn / spring.  On cold winter days a 4 hour burn provides all hot water and heating for a 24hr period. In total they lit the fire 89 times during the graphed period, using 33 barrows of wood. This shows the point of building the passivhaus way - so little heat is needed that it can be delivered via a small log boiler, and Porters is a large house (290m2).

The small log stove with back boiler is an attractive centre piece for the lounge which since they source their own logs, provides free thermal energy. Logs boilers have other advantages too - they are near to carbon neutral - the carbon released when burnt was absorbed by the tree when growing, so no net change in atmospheric CO2 levels (bar that emitted during log processing). Also if you buy logs, you are supporting your local log processing / woodland management industries - surely better than paying for oil to be extracted from the ground to support the fossil fuel industry? One day it might even revive our ancient coppice woodland which when managed provides a superb habitat for insects and wild life.

Traditional Oak Home but super low energy!

We visited our Streatley project last week to install the MVHR machine and see how the build is going. The external and internal of the build is nearly complete and it looks stunning! The Oak integrates into the low energy structure very well to create the required look, and with the structure constructed from our usual super insulated and air tight I beam frame method the home is extremely warm. In fact when we visited there was no heating on but the home was warm throughout. 

Please take a look at some images we took on the day:

American Wind Energy

We're interested in wind energy at Touchwood, and see it as one of the ways (along with PV and tidal) we can wean ourselves of fossil fuels. This short video of American walkers expressing how they feel about the look of the turbines we found refreshing and optimistic - most people in the UK also approve of onshore wind, but the media seem to focus on the moaners!



https://youtu.be/wJ5S8X0Vo3c

Banbury Low Energy Bungalow Nears Completion

Our works on the Banbury bungalow are now near completion - this super efficient timber frame building has traditional stone cladding so it fits into to the local area. We like this architectural approach - the house doesn't look like a low energy home but will perform exceptionally with minimal heating costs - contrasting to the traditional way a home of this look would have been built.

The home us built using our usual high performance timber structure:

* walls from 300mm I beams 

* rafters from 350mm I beams

* air tight board over entire external surface to create a simple, long term air tight solution

* cellulose fibre insulation blown into structure for excellent thermal, acoustic and thermal mass properties

* Norrsken triple glazed windows and doors

* Touchwood designed and installed PAUL MVHR system, with Lindab steel ductwork

Our duct work routes are all factory pre-cut in the frame, allowing us to use large bore rigid steel duct work - larger bore means lower air speeds for the same volume of air - so much quieter performance.

Our ducts are also in the joist zone, were they will be surrounded by cellulose insulation avoiding heat loss, and minimising noise creating a near silent system. MVHR is a critical component to an air tight home, cutting costs here by using flexible duct work or, not putting ducts in the insulated zone will impact the house performance 

Oak features now clear to see in our super low energy home with traditional features!

Our new concept where we incorporate Oak features into our super insulated low energy homes is coming along well, please see the image below of the interior after plasterboarding:

People often aspire to the traditional features of an Oak structured home but do not want the huge heating bills and air leaking envelope usually associated with Oak homes. They wish for a home built using our low energy principles - an air tight structure, MVHR ventilation, excellent U values and minimal cold bridging but with a traditional look.

Our passivhausOak concept meets this requirement perfectly - all Oak features are within the thermal envelope with no cold bridging through the exterior, so no sacrifice is made to the low energy principles by incorporating our pre-cut Oak trusses, beams and posts. A passivhaus building could have these Oak features incorporated - we look forward to creating a passivhaus certified project with exposed Oak in the future!

Roundhouse on Grand Design

Please be sure you see the Grand Design episode on September 17th which features our Roundhouse project near Milton Keynes. This very dramatic circular building was ideally suited to our pre-cut timber frame system which allows us to build any shaped structure - there are no limits imposed such as  making the build fit into pre made panels.

The main build was created with a Glulam frame, with our 300mm I beams then infilling between to create a super insulated, air tight structure - with the client then managing his own trades to finish the build.

Previews of the series featuring the Roundhouse were shown on TV recently, a still from the preview below:

Kent Project

We are now nearing completion on our project in Kent. This large, complex timber frame home over a part basement will create a home with 480m2 of living space, with fantastic panoramic views over the Kent countryside.

The frame features our rigid air tight board applied to the entire external surface to create a very robust, long term airtightness solution. Also a Touchwood Homes designed and installed PAUL MVHR system, using rigid steel duct work has been installed into the pre-cut duct routes in the frame to provide constant fresh air to the home.

Once complete, we will be commencing an exciting new build in Oxfordshire featuring an attractive curved glulam roof.

Works on our Suffolk project are now complete, with the timber frame and air tight layer installed, and Rationel's RED installation team successfully installing the windows in just two days.

The first fix works are also completed on the Touchwood designed PAUL MVHR system, allowing the project to be handed over to the local builder to organise the follow on works.