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The Home of Self Build, Custom Build & Renovation
• 67,000 sq. ft. year-round resource centre with 200+ stands
• Independent advice on everything from planning to plastering
• Self Build courses, exhibitions and Architect consultation days
• Free entry, plenty of parking and easy access just off the M4
These episodes will investigate various subjects in more detail, with expert guests, and previewing upcoming shows and events to help you with your potential or current self build and renovation projects.
I feel like I've done so much already.
I'm over this one, aren't I?
Just thrown because my
laptop was playing up mid broadcast there,
but welcome.
My name is Chris Dawes from
Visual PR and delighted
that we're going to carry
on these various broadcasts
through the day at the
Self-Build and Renovation live show here.
It's Friday, October the eleventh,
twenty twenty four, day one of two.
So if you're not planning to
come along today,
make sure you do tomorrow.
There's still time to get here today,
so make sure you do.
What we're doing is three of
these live panel discussions.
The boxing gloves are in the corner.
It's fine.
It's not a problem.
But we've got three experts
on three different things
from their own companies.
And we're going to open up conversations.
So let me introduce the
panel that we have here.
And I'm going to just start
the nearest to me.
So I keep myself out of
trouble because I'm not
doing anything else.
We got Paul Wood from New Heat.
Morning, Paul.
Yeah, as you say, Paul Wood from New Heat.
We specialise in warm water
underfloor heating and air
source with ground source heat pumps.
We've been doing this on a
bespoke basis for the last
thirty two years.
Personally been at the
company for the last nearly
nineteen years.
So I like to think I've
picked a little bit up along the way.
I would say that's fair.
Next up,
we've got Jenny Chandela from AC
Architects.
I am Jenny Chandela from AC Architects.
As you said,
we specialize in helping
self-builders realize their
dream of a low-energy home.
So we work almost
exclusively with self-builders,
and it is all sort of
fabric first all the way
through passive house
design principles that we're focusing on.
So every design is unique,
but every design is low-energy.
Okay.
I like it,
and we'll be with you for the
Rome a little bit later for
your virtual reality as well.
I'm looking forward to that.
Last, but by absolutely no means least,
it's Mike Shufflebotham.
Yes, I'm Mike.
I'm the sales manager at
Twenty One Degrees,
previously called Green Building Store.
People know that.
We've been promoting Passive
House since two thousand eight,
and we've developed a range of FSC,
Timber, Windows and Doors,
Mercantile Ventilation and Heat Recovery.
We promote air tightness tapes,
but we also,
we do the design and detail
of all these as well.
And we've now progressed on that.
Not every building we work
on is a passive house,
but we use the principles
of comfort and indoor air quality.
It's everything we get involved in.
We try and encourage people
to think about their
comforts and their air quality.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I get that.
We did chat about that sort
of angle in episode three
where we had total home environment.
And it was like that you
either have it fully sealed
or you then have the ventilation.
And it just feels like a
seesaw of which way you want to go.
Yeah, it's a whole other story.
And Passive House does that.
But nobody can do Passive House.
But you still...
Put some of the principles in.
Yes.
Put it to the whole house,
not just bits of it.
Presumably, and again,
apologies if I ask stupid questions.
I'm not the expert.
You guys are.
But presumably,
that's more for new builds
rather than renovations,
because that must be quite
hard to make a renovation.
Any iteration can be difficult,
but Passive House,
Enerfit is the retrofit for
Passive House.
And my next appointment on
our stand is just that.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, so it is doable.
It is doable.
So don't discount it.
Yeah.
Okay, that's cool to know.
Right,
let's launch into questions that
I... Don't shoot the messenger,
by the way.
I'm going to openly say I've
been given these questions.
Nick W can take the blame for this.
Right, first question.
I've got to break this down
because it's quite long.
How do you weigh up the impacts...
of using materials which are
eco-friendly to produce.
So materials that are
eco-friendly to produce
versus the operational
energy efficiency over the
life of that product.
I'm going to start with...
You shouldn't have looked so confuzzled.
But I guess let's break it
down to simple terms of
what's eco-friendly to
produce versus the energy efficiency.
How do you balance that up?
It's a difficult one.
I mean,
we've always recommended with any
customer that they need to
take the fabric first approach.
It's our products are great products,
but they're designed to
work in much lower conditions,
lower temperatures than
conventional modern old properties.
Yes.
So it's got to be fabric
first approach for all of what we do.
Jenny,
you've said that phrase already as well.
The fabric first.
Can you explain just to make
sure I understand exactly what you mean?
What does fabric first mean?
yeah fabric first is a
design principle and it
starts actually with really
smart design decisions what
I always say is sort of
architecture one-on-one
where are you going to get
solar heat game but not too
much of it where is your
heat loss make sure you're
positioning the house
On the plot and considering these things,
put your plant room on your
north side if you can,
because that's actually.
Generating a bit of heat,
so it's going to shield you
from that that heat loss.
So it starts with sort of
where you're revealing wins.
It starts with laying out
the house appropriately on the site,
but then it.
starts it goes further to
say let's think about the
fabric of the house the the
building system the
construction system and
that construction system
needs to be thermally
efficient it needs to limit
cold bridging cold bridging is um
If you think about the
insulation of your house being a warm,
fuzzy blanket around the entire building,
you don't want holes in your warm,
fuzzy blanket.
So traditional construction
has a lot of junctions that
result in cold bridging.
and then finally it's
putting in things like the
the ventilation systems and
um you know having the
appropriate window
specification because your
windows are some of your
your weak points and then
because you've gotten all
that right you have a much
lower requirement for
overall heating load so you
can use things like
underfloor heating air
source heat pumps ground
source heat pumps really
really efficiently
So that's sort of the starting point.
And then that all leads into
Passive House design.
And we always say,
even if you're not gonna go
for a Passive House
standard or Passive House certification,
get your fabric right and
strive for passive house
air tightness because at
some point your return on
investment for your insulation goes down,
but that indoor air quality
and indoor comfort goes way
up when you strive for the
passive house air tightness.
Yeah, we try and put that all the time.
If you can only do two things,
if you're on a limited budget,
if you get your air
tightness right down and
then put mechanical
ventilation and recovery in,
you'll get so many benefits
of indoor air quality,
reduced heating costs.
Yeah.
even if you have a single
brick Victorian building,
you can still make an
improvement by airtightness
and MHR alone.
One thing that's confused me,
and this is sort of like a
personal observation by accident,
someone I know had,
and I'm pretty sure that it
was linked this way,
they had solar panels
fitted onto the roof and
the big box in the garage,
and they love seeing the
levels of everything.
But the team that fitted it
went and planed the bottom
of one of the back doors,
so there was more of a gap.
What's that?
I mean,
I'm seeing chuckles and I'm worried
that they've been sort of
taken in a wrong direction.
Who do I aim that question at?
Why would they do that?
I mean, one of the things that we say,
and I'm sure Mike would agree with that,
is that when you're designing a house,
in particular, well, any house,
but in particular,
a low energy and a fast house, design,
design, design,
get all of your details
worked out before you start building.
So you don't get on site and say, oh,
I forgot I had to drill
this hole in the house I needed.
Yeah.
you need to have it well
sealed and you need to
think about where services
are coming in where they're
going out so that that's
already been designed into
all of the systems and I
think this is probably an
unfair situation because
they're not suddenly you
know it's literally they
already live in this house
and they've they've
suddenly got the ability to
put solar panels on there
but the team that that
fitted it when we need more
of a of a gap there and I'm like
Hang on, that's weird.
And then you guys are going, no, no gaps,
no gaps, seal it up.
Which makes sense to me because, Paul,
for example,
you go and put your systems
in and you've got all this
underfloor heating.
It's no good if it's just
disappearing straight out again.
No, absolutely.
And what we do ourselves is
room by room heat loss calculations.
We take it to the next level.
A lot of our industry does
whole house heat loss
rather than room by room.
And the shape of the room
will make a massive impact
on how that heating system will perform.
So by doing the room by room
heat loss calculations,
play straight into the
passive house side of things.
You want to make sure that
it's actually designed,
bespoke to the property
rather than just a one size fits all.
Because I've heard quite
often a floor-by-floor is
quite a common thing to do
different things on different floors.
We're literally room-by-room.
Yeah, we're done.
We add that into the password, into PHP.
We look at the room-by-room
eat-loss calculations on
top of the password.
Password tends to be the whole house.
So we then look at
individual eat-loss calculations as well.
That makes sense.
And I mean, Jenny,
you were bringing up about where it's put,
and I've heard comments about
It's got me, you know,
even using trees or bushes
outside to shade certain
windows or whatever.
Because you've not got just the heating,
there's the cooling could
be important as well.
And it's not always just
about the physical.
It needs to be deciduous trees,
so you get leaves in summer, shade,
and fall in the winter.
So you get solar gain,
you can get through the winter.
Exactly.
And it's amazing that you
don't just go and think
about the building itself.
There can be an awful lot more to it.
Okay.
But I mean,
I know the question that was
posed to me was, you know,
the difference between
materials that are eco-friendly to produce,
whereas operational energy efficiency,
I mean,
able to get into that kind of trade-off?
So it is individual by
individual what the
client's motivations are
for creating this house.
So some people are going to
be really motivated by the
fact that their energy
costs keep going up and up and up.
There are other people who
are going to be really
motivated about their
overall carbon footprint and what
their individual impact is.
So it's a different approach for everyone.
And I may have my personal opinions,
but as someone who works
with self builders,
it's our job to understand
what their motivations are
to help them create the
best environment for them.
Unfortunately,
no single house is going to
save the world.
And people have different
opinions about what it is
that needs to be done to do that.
So we're here to provide options.
And your natural materials
are always going to be
The ones that have the lower
carbon footprint.
So timbers is a renewable resource.
You have natural
installations you can use.
Those tend to be less
efficient in terms of their
installation value.
So then your walls can get much thicker.
And some of us don't have
the options on the plots that we have.
To have really thick walls.
It's not an easy thing, is it then?
And there's a lot of
sustainability that
actually longevity of a
product is sustainable as well.
So we use a lot of stainless
steel ducting with our MHR designs.
You can argue stainless
steel is not necessarily very sustainable,
although it's quite recycled.
But when designed and put in the building,
it could be there for the
life of the building.
Yeah.
So there's that size of
sustainability as well.
Which I guess in a lot of
the self-builds and the renovations,
people are thinking they're forever home,
aren't they?
Yes.
So that longevity becomes an
important issue.
Yeah.
I know that I've had the phrase,
if someone ever turns around and says,
when will I get the payback?
It's like end of conversation.
You can't do a straight
equation like that.
How do you put a price on
comfort and healthy?
How do you put a price on that?
It isn't that easy.
And also with regards to heating,
everybody's usage is different.
Yes.
How do you model that?
Yeah.
If you walked into my house,
my wife would have the
heating around fifteen
degrees because she likes
to wear it myself.
I would automatically put it much higher.
Yeah, yeah.
Because I like my shorts.
Yeah.
In the middle of winter.
He hasn't got any on now, you're on.
So, you know,
it's very difficult to model that.
You can work with
percentages and all the rest of it,
but that's probably the
best guide you've got.
yeah okay that this question
went a little bit further,
how do you make decisions
about whether it's more
effective to reduce energy
demand versus using more
renewable energy.
Any of you in a position to
address doesn't that go
back to the fabric first
fabric is still the same thing,
so I think probably yes
yeah fine and if you.
reduce your overall load,
you need less renewables.
That's the bottom line.
So you'd always prefer to reduce your load,
I would think.
This is the cheapest energy
you could ever get.
It's that energy you don't use.
Of course.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So fabric first.
Or a jumper.
Yeah, a jumper.
I agree.
Yeah, but you can't say that.
You've just admitted you're
the one that still wants to
be in the shorts in the winter.
How can someone balance, again,
apologies if we've covered it.
I'm reading this out as we go.
Their personal design
preferences with
performance and long-term value.
So how can someone
emotionally balance that?
Because I know we've already
largely covered where
they've got personal preferences,
but they're also looking at
performance or longevity.
I mean,
these must be difficult
conversations that you all
get involved in.
One thing that seems to
solve it is the budget.
quite often to get a
thorough performance that
they want to achieve but
they want a certain look
the cost of doing that and
making the thing twice ah
okay it's quite simple you
get a very good film
performance keep everything
simple is the easiest way
to get there both cost wise
and performance wise do
most people start with
utopia and then bring it
down to reality is that
does that happen a lot
I think there are some people,
but there are a lot of
people who are really clued
in to the construction.
The people who are self
builders are at events like today,
they're at many of the other shows,
they're reading in their spare time,
they often come spouting
off a lot of information that, you know,
it surprises me the level
of detail that they know
about what goes into a low energy home.
But at the same time,
I want to make this
absolutely clear to anybody
that may not be in that
situation where they know,
because there's a lot of
other people that are suddenly going,
do you know what?
Housing market has gone up
through the roof and
they're not providing what I want.
And, you know,
we've done several episodes
where going actually to go
and self-build or renovate.
I think the self-building particular.
is a lot more doable than people realise.
Yes, it is.
And so this is where a
centre like this is
absolutely precious because
we're getting all of you people here,
available with your technology,
with your knowledge and all
of those things,
and shows like this
particular one with two
days of presentations.
So even if you're a bit further back,
they might not know how to
get that budget,
but you are able to guide them.
Yeah, absolutely.
And people can do a lot more
in their self-build.
There's the term self-build,
and everyone thinks, well,
I can't build my own house.
But actually, you don't.
There's the range of the
people who are out there
every day doing the work
and the people who are
delivering it as turnkey.
Self-build is just terminology for...
Sort of creating your own bespoke home,
whether someone else is building it,
you're building it.
But actually,
most self builders who come and say, oh,
I can't do any of that.
Well, there's a lot you can do, actually,
and not the project
management is one if you're
not a hands on person.
you can probably do a lot of
that oversight and programming.
And that's something that
someone can really bring
down the cost of their
project if they're involved
on an administrative level.
So you can do it.
It's possible.
And there are a lot of
people here to show.
And I've talked to a few
people already this morning who have said,
well, we did it once,
but we think we can do it better.
So we're going to do it again.
Yeah.
Doing these shows for nearly
eighteen years,
it's amazing how many
people come back to you and say,
saw you fifteen years ago,
we did our first one for you,
we're doing it again.
Yes.
And that makes sense, doesn't it?
Because with anything,
you live in it or you use something,
you kind of go, this is brilliant,
but now I'm using it,
what would be even better if it is?
And so you go and do that
again and it makes sense.
interesting that you're then
selling someone else your design,
but that's for the one
you're moving out of.
But a really high quality house.
Yeah, exactly.
Even if it was built with technology,
twenty, thirty years ago,
the self-built house,
than the new housing that
you're getting today.
Agreed, absolutely.
Right,
another question that was thrown at me.
How can homeowners
future-proof their
self-build or renovation
projects in terms of technology,
accessibility and energy efficiency?
back to the same thing again
it is and it probably
you're back to fabric first
again yeah you're right
back to the same same place
which is and this is just
interesting where people
are coming up these
questions from different
angles um and I guess it is
still their priorities and
their minds are changing
but it does still come back
which actually is quite
encouraging is that hey
addressing it with this
fabric first is always
going to address all these
questions that people have got
Well,
what you're looking at is designing
better than building rigs.
Building rigs are always
going to change and improve.
And if you look
North, we look in Scotland,
what they're doing with
their building regs.
I mean,
they're basically building regs is
past house equivalent.
And what happens in Scotland
trickles down to England.
So keep one step ahead and
build beyond what the
building regs are saying.
Because building regs, remember,
they're the minimum.
Do you want to build to the minimum?
Our definition of building
regs is the worst
performing building you're
legally allowed to build.
What can I get away with?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Accessibility-wise, that's, I guess,
the not fabric one.
Just think about everyone at
some point is going to have
some sort of injury, you know,
put a bedroom or a
comfortable bedroom with a
shower room downstairs.
And that's
that's probably the number
one a flexi space that can
turn and that is what they
expanded onto to be fair
allowing flexibility in
dying design so the homes
can adapt to changing needs
and and that that kind of
makes sense I guess the
problem is you never quite
know what that future can
be but you can second guess
a few things I guess yeah
no it makes sense um key
thing then to wrap up with
on this uh because I know
we could just carry on to
attack it for ages why
should someone come and see
you guys at the show and
I'm going to go one at a
time I'm going to go the
opposite direction mike
what I what would someone
gain from coming and
chatting to you guys the
key thing is we try and
find out what they're
trying to do what's the
driving force behind what
they do find out where will they go
directing how we can help them.
And I quite often then send them to Jenny,
to them.
Because you can actually
start at one point on any
of the stands and they can
actually guide you.
Actually, what you talk about,
part of what you need is to
go over there.
And that's a key thing that
we've emphasised in all the
episodes is that this is
not a sales first
environment where you're going to go,
I'm not letting them go.
I'm not letting them go.
It's like, no, no, no, no.
They're the people you want to speak to,
et cetera.
Exactly, yeah.
occasionally,
although my managing MD may
be nomadic with this,
occasionally I'm talking to
people about windows and
we're not the right company for them.
Right.
So I don't want to waste my
time or their time,
so I'll go and take them to
the stand that's probably
the right company for them.
So what questions would they
have in their mind that
would signal that they need
to come and see you, though?
If they want to build better
than building regs,
if they want a healthy
indoor air quality and comfortable,
that's what we're all about.
And that is twenty-one degrees, so glazing,
double glazing, all of that.
And yeah, triple glazing.
Triple, sorry, yeah.
Windows and doors,
we calculate ventilation,
we do airtightness tapes
for the products as well.
And then we've got,
we have consultancy built in,
we have a little consultancy team within,
so we can do PAPP,
we can do heat loss calculations.
And growing later this year, I mean,
we will certainly say that
it's going to expand as well,
the business,
so keep your eyes out for that,
everybody.
Jenny, same question really.
Yeah, I mean,
if you're just curious about
the self-build process and
you like what you've heard
about fabric first and low energy,
we have a lot of experience
with self-builders and
putting together a package
of drawings that is amazing.
sufficient for a
self-builder going out and
and designing a low energy
house so just come and have
initial conversations and
even if it's you know just
something you've maybe
thought about we have
resources we are you know
we really pride ourselves
on educating um
self-builders whether
you're our clients or not
we want you to be our
clients but um you know it's
I'm here to provide you with resources.
And just like Mike said,
there are going to be so
many people you need to
talk to along the journey.
It's so fantastic to be at
the NSBRC and say, oh,
we need help in financing.
Go talk to that person.
And tomorrow at one thirty,
I've got a talk that just
talks about low energy design principles.
That's in the building theatre.
Yes, that's that way, isn't it?
Mike, we did forget that you've got,
what is it?
It's a discussion panel at
twelve thirty today in the
building theatre.
Perfect.
So that's a sustainability theatre.
You're in that one.
That's what it says here.
That'll do me.
I'll go the right direction.
Paul, same to you.
Last but not least.
So,
thirty-two years of experience within
the underfloor heating market.
We've been supplying heat
pumps since two thousand and seven.
We're very lucky to be one
of the very few companies
to offer the combination of
both air and ground and the
combination of the underfloor heating.
And we've also got sort of
nearly seventy different
ways of installing underfloor heating.
So no matter what the
scenario of your build is,
we'll design it bespoke to
the property and advise you
along the way.
And we'll answer questions
like floor finishings.
How do we do this?
What fabric of the building?
And we'll work very,
very closely with these
guys along the way.
And presumably that can be
both retrofit as well as from scratch.
Absolutely.
The retrofit market is massive.
Yeah.
You know,
the majority of the housing stock
in UK needs to be brought up to standard.
And, you know,
with the changes in building
regs a couple of years ago, then,
you know,
lower flow temperatures means
underfloor heating is a
really great way of
achieving what we need.
So it's, yeah, it feels great as well.
So it's one of those, it's...
Yes, it frees up space.
But as a company,
we pride ourselves on service.
And service is paramount to
us much before our service.
And I think if you were to
speak to any of our customers,
they'd agree with that.
well episode two in
self-build and renovation
live we uh with Mark dudes
and Tom McSherry and they
brought up the stat that
this country is something
like ten percent of the
market is is self-build and
yet Europe is up at like
forty odd percent I think
it was and it's just
something's not quite right
there so hopefully with
this new guys all coming
together in a venue like
this and events like this
is it enables us to consider
that it is more viable an option.
It's certainly really cool.
Honestly,
you walk around some of these
setups and the fake houses
and all of that, and you're going,
I want that.
And the beauty with
self-build is we'll have
that then because you're
building it from scratch.
So make sure that you come
and see these people.
There are experts throughout this venue.
What have we got?
Two hundred odd trades
village stands that are here.
Lots of shows.
Really, really cool.
So thank you so much for
coming and joining us.
Mike, Jenny and Paul, absolute pleasure.
Any more questions that you've got,
go and see them.
Simple as that.
So thank you for your time.
We'll be back at eleven
o'clock for a roaming camera,
which will include your stand again,
Jenny, actually, apparently.
And we'll be back at twelve, I think it is,
for the next panel, which is Pitfalls,
Opportunities,
Revelations.
I better research that one
because they've thrown all
sorts at me at that one again.
But we'll be back later for
the roaming at eleven o'clock.