"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 26, 7:14 pm, RJH wrote:
On 26/02/2013 17:36, harry wrote:









On Feb 26, 10:35 am, RJH wrote:
On 26/02/2013 10:15, harry wrote:

On Feb 26, 8:56 am, Fred wrote:
Hi,

Some years ago I went to a show about building your own house. I
wasn't in a position to build my own but went out of curiosity. A
chap
called Tim Pullen was there talking about sustainable building.
Don't
worry, it's not as bad as it sounds - it's not all about windmills


Some of the things he was talking about were insulating with celotex
ground source heat pumps and under floor heating, etc. which don't
seem that daft.

At the time he was pushing his book, "Simply Sustainable Homes" but
I
never got round to buying it. Looking at Amazon it was published in
2008, so I think that a lot of it could be out of date now.

Amazon shows another book called "The Sustainable Building Bible"
that
he wrote in 2011. Has anyone read either of these? Is the 2011 book
a
reworking of the first, is it the second edition under a different
name, or is it very different? I suppose what I am asking is has
anyone read both and is it work reading both or just the latest one?
There are no reviews for the second title on Amazon.

TIA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive...uilding_design
http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/Subject/2/ECOBUILDING.html
http://www.greenbuildingpress.co.uk/

Quite a few such houses have been built/converted.
I have such a house.

Do you know of a book that looks systematically at costs/benefits,
both
in terms of building/retrofitting costs and pounds saving, and the
wider
costs and benefits? Things like solar panel manufacture and pollution,
labour exploitation, local economy effects, global warming/cooling (I
lose track!).

Thanks, Rob

Including 4Kwp PV panels, I spent 19,000 on my place (converting
standard house to solar passive house)
Doing nearly all work myself.
The annual financial benefit is about 3500.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ara-chl...7627608971673/

However the FIT prices have changed as has the price of solar panels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_in...United_Kingdom

I think a new passive house need cost no more than a standard house
because there would be no gas supply or central heating to pay for.

I don't believe you will find any book that can give you the total
picture. The situation is politicised, evolving and there are lots of
nutcases out there. Some writing books.

Couldn't agree more. The picture seems to be especially confused in my
field - social housing. The nature and scale of housing development
usually follows the money, with very little thinking about whether it's
actually wanted.

My assumption is that energy costs will go up. Lots.
I anticipate getting my money back in five years. I am half way there
and see no reason to think I'm wrong.

Which is of course fine - for you. I'd like a more systematic way of
evaluating the consequences of this understandable way of thinking.
I'd loosely hypothesise that it's actually making things worse overall.
I wrote to Green Books and they don't know of such a work.

The problem is too complex/too many varibles to come up with numbers.

Bull**** with the basics.

But the time to act is now while you can still afford to.

Bet that will always be true for all except those who **** their
money against the wall on stuff like houses in europe etc.

If you have any money, the government will steal it by QE

Bull****.

and now they're thinking about negative interest rates.

Which is only good if you want to borrow the money.