Saturday 24 November 2012

Stirley Community Farm's Passivhaus Barn project launched

 There are exciting developments going on at Stirley Community Farm. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have commenced their Cre8 barn project. One of the old stone barns is being completely refurbished to passivhaus building standards by local award winning company the Green Building Company with substantial support from Veolia following a successful bid by the Trust. Passivhaus standards are where buildings are insulated to a very high standard with air tightness being key to acheiving extremely low heating requirements in the building. The Green Building Company are national leaders in passivhaus design and build and this will be the first time in the UK that such standards have been applied to the retrofit of a non domestic property.(Correction in comments from Green Building Company -oops!) It is pleasing to have yet another high eco spec development in the Newsome Ward. Bill Butcher of GBC is doing a blog on the construction of the barn which you can access here. The launch event featured Barry Sheerman MP who provided his support to the event and told us of his passion for the English poet John Clare. The new barn wuill be used for training a skills development and will have very negligible heating costs.
Still a bit of work required on the roof!
Green Party member Karen Allison in the barn. I'm sure she'll thank me for putting this photo up!

Oswald Dodds of Veolia , Rob Stoneman of YWT and Barry Sheerman. I promised Barry I'd caption this 'Champagne Socialist'

4 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for mentioning the project Andrew - I just need to make one small correction: It is not true that
    this will be the first time in the UK that such standards have been applied to the retrofit of a non domestic property. There have been a small number already, such as Mayville Community Centre:
    http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/page--mayville-community-centre-mvhr.html
    What is new and innovative about this project is that it can offer a blueprint for low energy barn conversions. A super-insulated timber frame structure will be built inside the existing stone barn building, preserving the outward appearance of the barn, whilst equipping it for very high levels of energy efficiency. The timber frame structure will have the additional advantage of supporting and shoring up the original stone building.

    More information on the project is at:
    http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/page--stirley-farm-enerphit.html

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  2. Thanks for the clarification. I must have misheard that one the day.

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  3. Thanks so much for mentioning the project Andrew - just need to make a slight amendment this is not the first time that Passivhaus has been applied to non domestic retrofit (see bere architects' Mayville Community Centre retrofit at: http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/page--mayville-community-centre-mvhr.html). However it is one of the first and will offer very innovative solutions for low energy barn conversion projects etc.

    Bill's blogs on the project are at:
    http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/page--stirley-farm-enerphit.html

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