The Steijger Solar House 
The Steijger Solar House
Description
The Steijger Solar house is a detached 2 storey house with wooden cladding, set in 1/4 acre with wildlife garden under development and self-sufficient kitchen garden,designed to HDRA's organic guidelines.
The house has 144 m2 of living space, including 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a home office, a utility, an open-plan living area and a cloak room. Additionally 2 storage rooms on the north side and a full-width and full-height conservatory on the south side provide heat buffer zones.
Building of the house started in June 2001. We moved in on April 1st 2002 with still a lot of the internal work to be done. It wasn't until 7 April 2003 that the house was officially declared finished by the building inspector.
The house has been built from and decorated with low-impact materials where possible, utilising super-insulation as well as active and passive solar principles. A high efficiency wood stove heats the house (only 4 months per year!). Permanent ventilation with the heat recovery unit means high air quality, low moisture and low heat loss. Surplus heat is used by the heat pump to pre-heat the water. A 5 m3 rainwater tank supplies water to the toilets, washing machine, plant watering and outside tap. 15 m2 solar panels supply approx. 1000 kWh of electricity per year. A wind generator has been planned for.The SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) energy rating is over 100.
Background
Why have we built a house?
Because we couldn't find an affordable house that fulfilled our wishes.
What are these
wishes?
Light and space, with a pleasant temperature and humidity. Comfortable with a
minimum of non-reusable materials and as autonomous as possible:
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A very high u-value, which can be reached with 25 cm insulation and double low-E glass windows. |
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Many windows for lots of light. On the north side windows have been kept to a minimum, because of heat loss. On the south side a conservatory serves as a buffer, in order to prevent the living room from becoming too hot or too cold. For this reason also there are no south facing windows in the bedrooms. |
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We don't need central heating because the house is so well insulated. The air in the house is refreshed and kept on temperature with the aid of a heat recovery unit. A wood stove in the living room supplies extra warmth in those couple of very cold months in winter. This concept has been proved in houses around Edinburgh, among other places. |
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A 5000 liter rain water tank. This water will be used for the toilets, the washing machine, plants, etc. |
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No direct use of fossil fuels. Instead we will have photovoltaic cells on the roof, that create electricity from day light. We hope that we will be able to supply all our own electricity as soon as possible. Until that time we will top up with 'green electricity'. On the 'External work' site you can see pictures of the pv cells. |
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The timber frame consists of Masonite; H-shaped spruce beams made in Sweden. Some recycled wood is used in the production, it's stronger than traditional timber beams and it offers a better u-value. For more information: www.masonite-beams.se |
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The insulation material is made of recycled newspaper. No unnecessary harmful substances are added and it also offers a very good u-value. For more information: www.fillcrete.demon.co.uk |
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After all these years ducking in doorways and back pain from washing up, we can now adjust all measurements to ourselves! The doors will be 220 cm high and the kitchen will be 15 cm higher than usual. The groundfloor will also be 10 cm higher than normal. |
Why no fossil fuels?
Apart from the standard story that supplies are running out and CO2
causes global warming, we have now found a better motto: the Stone Age didn't
end because of shortage of stones, but because there was a better alternative.
This is what will also end the Oil Age!
The original idea
Ideas are nice, but can they be performed within our budget? Our first
idea was (and still is) quite good: a large air collector on the roof, the
heat stored in pebbles in an underground store and a hollow wall that
functions as hot air central heating. Although there's nothing new about
these ideas (the Romans used hot air heating in hollow walls), the concept
was interesting enough for our architect, Alan Newton,
to agree to help us design it. However, after the
first quotes were sent to us, it became clear that this concept would be
unaffordable. So we decided to go for a 'passive solar house' instead,
with additional photovoltaic cells as and when the budget would allow it.
Building with our timber frame material of choice (Masonite) also turned out to be not without problems: the first supplier pulled out of the negotiations after about a year and the second supplier went bust just before we were going to order. Luckily, we have found a very good builder who, although he hasn't got experience with timber frames, was eager to build it!
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This is us |
Architect Alan Newton |
Builder John Swindell |
