Cob Blog

Most people were expecting great things to happen at Copenhagen, especially as Barack Obama’s administration seems to be pushing forward on emissions reductions however, the dance continues. 55 nations (representing 78% of total greenhouse gas emissions) submitted pledges to the UN to cut emissions by 2020. Unfortunately they mostly reiterate pledges made before the summit and are dependent on many conditions being met.

The US reaffirmed it commitment to cut emissions by 17% by 2020 but this is dependent on the bill being passed at home. China repeated that it would ‘endeavour’ to cut it’s emissions of CO2 per unit of GDP by 40-45% between 2005 and 2020.A German policy analyst is noted as saying “the vast majority of nations have failed to seize this opportunity to make their pledges more ambitious”, “our analysis suggests that the world is still on track for a 3.5 degree rise in temperature”.

Meanwhile it has emerged that Bill Gates has been funding geoengineering research. He has committed $4.5 million of his own money to funding climate scientists interested in geoengineering. This comes just as research from the University of Chicago shows that we ‘hack the climate at our peril’. Studies show that 94 million years ago the oceans were starved of oxygen and 27% of marine life went extinct due to mass volcanic eruptions. The vast emissions of sulphate aerosols caused algal blooms in the water which removed all of the oxygen. These same aerosols are proposed, by geoengineering scientists, to be released in large quantities to reflect sunlight. Researchers are concerned that this may trigger algal blooms in fresh water lakes and result in the death of aquatic life.

It is becoming ever more important for individuals to take action for themselves rather than relying on governments and leaders to ‘force’ us address our emissions. The consumer is after all ‘all powerful’ and simple buying choices and lifestyle changes can make a dramatic impact.

An ambitious sustainable social housing scheme, designed to meet Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes through the use of renewable materials, has achieved planning approval. The development is being delivered by Crossover C-Zero LLP in partnership with Flagship Housing, one of the largest providers of social housing in East Anglia and will be built using Tradical® Hemcrete®.

Based at Denmark Lane, Diss, the scheme will see the construction of 114 housing units and will be the first major affordable homes project proposed to seek Level 4 rating of the Code for Sustainable Homes. To aid its completion, the development has managed to obtain £3 million in funding from the Housing and Communities Agency (HCA) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), who earlier this year offered financial aid for the delivery of social housing schemes that used renewable materials.

Developer C-Zero will be working in conjunction with Flagship Housing. Their groundbreaking use of sustainable materials is central to the success of the development and was influenced by the highly successful DECC funded and NNFCC delivered Renewable House project. This scheme saw the construction of a 3 bedroom house at the BRE Innovation Park and demonstrated the viability of building low cost, thermally efficient houses from renewable materials.

102 of the 114 homes of the Denmark Lane development are designated as affordable and earmarked for the local community. 15 dwellings will be purchased by Flagship housing and 87 will be sold to local people at a large discount to open market value, allowing a three bedroom house to be purchased for around £99,000 leasehold.

The proposed development will prove a benchmark in moving UK housing towards a sustainable model and stimulate the growth of eco-friendly construction methods. By carefully integrating specially chosen environmentally friendly products such as Tradical® Hemcrete® the scheme is illustrating the future potential and attainability of sustainable housing.

The reason most people cite as preventing them from going ‘green’ is cost. Politicians seem petrified of the public backlash from really tackling climate change because they fear it will cost too much.

However, a modelling exercise conducted for the ‘New Scientist’ magazine shows that the fears are completely unfounded. Based on a 50% cut in emissions by 2050 the model shows that the rises in most people’s purchases will be barely noticeable.

The following increases were shown.
- Electricity – 15% increase, approx. £60 on the average yearly UK bill.
- Communications – 0%
- Electronics – 2%, a £1000 laptop would cost £20 more.
- Tobacco – 2%, barring new taxes the cost of a packet of cigarettes would rise by 10p.
- Cars – 1%, a new £20,000 Toyota Prius would cost an extra £240
- Food – 1%, the average weekly bill in the UK would rise by less than £1.
- Alcohol – 2%, the cost of a pint of beer would rise by 6p.
- Clothing – 1%, a £500 men’s suit would rise by £5.
- Household goods – 2%, the price of a washing machine would rise by £5-10.

Other similar studies have been done in the US show that the rises would be less than 5% for a 50% cut by 2050, confirming the results found by the ‘New Scientist’ survey. Even cutting emissions by 80% has little more effect on consumer goods in most areas.

Most of the price hikes are as a consequence of increases in the cost of energy, simply because gas and coal sources will have to be replaced by more expensive renewable sources. Understandably people assume that large rises in energy costs have a massive knock on effect in the cost of production but actually electricity and other forms of energy make up only a small fraction of the retail price of most goods. Raw materials, labour and taxes are far more important.

There is however one major exception. Air travel. This is expected to rise by 140% unless a low carbon jet fuel can be found. This would mean a trip from London to New York would rise from £350 to £840. Many people would see this as fair given that Airlines have had it easy for so long with regards to environmental restrictions.

Natural gas and petrol are also expected to rise by 160% and 32% respectively and so to avoid large rises in the cost of domestic heating and road haulage the Cambridge researchers had to build in two major policies in to the model. Firstly, governments would provide grants and other incentives to help switch all domestic heating and cooking to electricity and secondly, invest in the infrastructure to ensure that electric cars almost completely replace petroleum fuelled vehicles. Both are policies discussed in recent government strategy documents.

All in all this shows that it is possible for us to change and adapt to a low carbon world, without it costing the earth.

Both Thermoplan and Tradical Hemcrete have now become significant players for buildings aiming for Code level 4 and above. At this level it becomes reasonably complicated to design walling with conventional materials such that the costs involved mean it is easier and quicker to use the alternatives.

The Natural House, built at the BRE’s Innovation Park, is an alternative response to environmental efficiency in sustainable homebuilding from The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment. The Prince’s Foundation expects The Natural House to deliver significant energy savings right from manufacture to daily use, to offer good indoor air quality, to be simple and quick to construct and to appeal to the increasingly eco-aware homebuyer.

The building envelope has been constructed with products supplied by NBT, including the ThermoPlan fired clay, thin-joint wall block system, NBT Pavatex roof insulation system, and natural renders and plasters. For more details see http://www.natural-building.co.uk/news/2009/building-better-naturally.html.

Tradical Hemcrete has also been used in the NNFCC Renewable House, also built at the BRE Innovation Park. The house is based around using renewable materials to deliver a low cost, affordable house that meets Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes through materials alone, with a build cost of £75,000, excluding groundworks. Whilst offering significantly minimised embodied CO2, the design also enables the easy enhancement to meet Levels 5 and 6.

The Renewable House was delivered by the NNFCC with funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The house was Project Managed by contractor The Linford Group who managed the design development and construction. They worked with design partners Empyer Homes and Archial Architects.

The key building material, Hemcrete®, was provided by product manufacturer Lime Technology and the development overseen by client’s agent Benchmark Property. For more details see http://www.renewable-house.co.uk/.

Another Hemcrete project, which is about to start is an innovative green housing development in Swindon that is the brainchild of ‘Grand Designs’ presenter Kevin McCloud.

HabOakus, a partnership between Kevin McCloud’s development company Hab Housing and Oakus Wiltshire, has been given approval to build 42 homes that will meet Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, but with the potential for upgrading to zero carbon status. The scheme, called the Triangle, is due to be built from Tradical Hemcrete. For more info see http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2009-12-04-Work-to-start-on-Kevin-McClouds-hemp-housing-scheme.

I look forward to seeing many more!!

The last 3 months since my last rant have shot by rather fast as we head into the glorious depths of the English autumn and winter. Once again we are experiencing some fairly extreme weather, 225mm in the Lake District in 1 day is apparently a 1 in 100 year storm. This is quite like the 1 in 100 year storm that happened nearby a year or two ago!! Can the English weather get any worse??

In early September we had the Self-Build and Design show at Westpoint in Exeter. This was the best show we have ever attended in terms of sheer number of enquiries and interest on the stand. In the 2 days we were there we spoke to over 400 people who were interested in the whole range of products. Many of these, as you may guess, were self-builders who were really excited by the simplicity of both the Hemcrete and the Thermoplan systems. Both are great systems for self-build as they require little formal training to be able to construct the finished structure.

The projects that we are involved with are still growing in number thankfully as the 3 years of promotional work bear fruit. They range from people using small quantities of Sheep’s wool to insulate VW Surf vans to social housing projects involving tens or hundreds of new houses. It is great to see that the general public is much more interested in the topic than ever, a much broader range of people come to see us at the events we attend, it is also becoming ever more exciting seeing how people are using sustainable materials to build and renovate some fantastic looking buildings. One day, when I have time, I’ll get some photos of them all and put them on the website!!

The sustainable or ‘Green’ construction market has been hit by the economic downturn but it mostly seems to have delayed projects rather than stopped them altogether. Government intervention in the social housing construction sector has really helped get a lot of projects off the ground, especially with Hemcrete as this can now really compete economically with ordinary materials at code level 4 and above which is now required for these projects. Now that the Government grants have now run out there still seems to be quite a noticeable momentum to sustainable construction projects and the market is becoming fiercely competitive with some manufacturers really making a concerted effort to take on the large mainstream producers. Whilst in the short term this is obviously a painful time for everyone, in the longer term it may be just what this sector of the construction industry needed to gain a better foothold.

In late September, at the Genesis Centre in Taunton, we ran 1 day and 3 day seminars on the Udi Systems range from Unger Diffutherm, the inventors of wood fibre insulation (diffutherm). Bernd Unger and Sabine Groeneveld flew over from Germany to impart their extensive knowledge of these materials on a groups of people including architects, developers, builders and several home owners. The course was designed to give participants a good understanding of wood fibre insulation and for those on the 3 day course, certification allowing them to become registered installers able to give the 15 year warranty on the installed systems. It was a real success and since, we have had an increase in enquiries for these truly brilliant systems as there is now a small network of registered installers able to back up the products.

Yes, yes, we know how awful the economy is and yes we know the building industry is extremely hard hit by it all BUT…. There are little rays of light beginning to shine through the gloom. We have had the best spring quarter that we have ever had and we are getting enormous interest in the new product we have added to our range over the last 9 months or so.

Due to the great interest in natural insulation and cladding systems, during the week of the 28th of September we are holding a 1 day seminar for architects on how to correctly specify the range of Unger woodfibre insulation systems that we sell. This will be followed by a 2 day seminar/training course for builders to learn how to install the systems and, assuming they pass the various tests, they will be certified as installers and able to offer the 15 year guarantee on the systems. We are expecting builders and architects from all over southern England to attend and the event will be held at the Genesis Project in Taunton. (www.genesisproject.com)

One product that is showing enormous potential is the Lithotherm Underfloor heating system. Because of the way the tile is made up it means that you need much lower input temperatures to achieve a similar heat output which makes it ideal for use with solar, ground- or air-source, all of which are becoming more popular. The product is made from recycled waste brick and takes the place of a conventional floor screed. Because it is a dry system it means that it is ideal for use with timber or tile floors as they can be laid on top immediately after the Lithotherm tiles are laid. Fantastic!!!!

Now that the market for these green materials is growing so much, manufacturers are beginning to manufacture here. Ibstock are now producing the Thermoplan block here, meaning that very soon the price of the system will drop considerably, coming extremely close in price to conventional cavity walling. This will then make it a complete ‘no brainer’ when it comes to masonry construction, why use conventional cavities when you can have solid, breathable walls with a really good U-value that can be built much much faster than any other sort of masonry?

We have now added an e-brochure to our website, it is in the product page http://www.backtoearth.co.uk/products.html and should come up once you click it. If you can’t see it you may need to empty your cache and then return. The idea was to get all of our product info in a format that is more manageable than 65 different pdf downloads and one that makes it easy to skim through and find the info you need. Hopefully you agree that it is better……Otherwise I’ve wasted a lot of our money!!

So, in summary, although it is tough at the moment, I think things are beginning to move once again. The building industry may well be different to what it was before but change is rarely easy or comfortable and hopefully things will be better.

The season of local shows is upon us!! We started off with the Homes for Good show at Westpoint in Exeter, next was the highlight of the social calendar, the ‘Thorverton Country Show’ (which actually brings in as many sales as some of the large shows), after that is the Mid Devon Show (25th July http://www.middevonshow.co.uk/, again another really good one for local contacts and sales) finishing with the Green Living Show at Stourhead in Wiltshire (3rd & 4th October, www.greenlivingshow.co.uk). Please come along and see our new ranges if you live near any of these shows, see the websites for more info.

We are also doing some events for RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) which should be interesting, hopefully for the architects as well as us. We are taking all of our products along to each show and talking for around 2.5 to 3 hours on them so as they get a real understanding of how to use the systems and where they can be used (Did I say interesting?? Informative at least). When we do CPD’s or talks you rarely get enough time to talk about the materials in any great depth and unless people are really interested they often forget quite quickly.

We’re currently talking to Exeter University about doing some research into how combinations of the materials we sell perform and how we can measure their performance against some less sustainable alternatives. The idea behind this is to give customers a real idea of how much better the materials are rather than just having to take my word for it. We will then be able to say (or not) why and by how much the systems are better than others. We should also be building a house soon which will be packed full of sensors to get some real life data on the way a building performs.

Thankfully we’ve been extremely busy over the last 3 months and have more than doubled our turnover during that time, consequently we are beginning to outgrow our current facilities and we may have to look at moving to larger premises soon. Has anyone got a really big warehouse, with good transport links, local to us for next to no rent. Is that asking too much????

I know I know, it’s been ages since I wrote a post but we’ve been absolutley, rediculously busy. Natural Building Solutions have been busy working on various restoration jobs and are currently spray rendering a large farmhouse near Honiton and Back to Earth has had so many enquiries for materials for different projects that I have spent the last 6 weeks sat at my desk calculating quantities and prices for around 10 large projects, 5 of which are Hemcrete. Long may it continue!!!

Natural Building Solutions have various large projects coming up soon and are going to need to take on another member of staff to be able to cope with the scale of the projects. I think I might have to get them a little motor home as well as the projects are spread out around the South West from near Plymouth all the way up to Stroud in Gloucestershire.

Back at the beginning of  March was Ecobuild. I spent the Tuesday wandering around, chatting to our suppliers and looking at all of the materials on offer. Apart from a huge increase in the amount of ‘greenwash’ that was being liberally spread (aparently concrete is really ‘green’ now because it is produced locally!!) about there was no real change from last year.I don’t wish to brag but I think our suppliers produce the best, genuinely sustainable, high quality building materials.

We recently became distributors for a fantastic German company called Unger, who sell a range of wood fibre insulation systems. These were the inventors of the wood fibre insulation systems and are the most innovative company dealing with the products. They are regularly coming up with new products to improve the way in which the systems work and are the only manufacturer we know of that has designed renders and plasters specifically for the boards and are prepared to give a 15 year garantee on them. Until recently the systems were quite cost effective but with the massive devaluation of the pound their cost has risen. They are still worth considering but the payback period on using some of the systems has gone from 3-4 years up to 5-6 years, however they are possibly the best retrofit exterior insulation system on the market. See the website for more details.

The devaluation of the pound has had some unforeseen benefits however. The manufacturers of the Thermoplan block have decided to manufacture in the UK now which will reduce their price by anything up to 30%. Also, the manufacturers of some of our lime renders will be doing the same with a similar reduction in cost, so it’s not all bad at all.

Finally, we shall be exhibiting at the ‘Homes for Good’ show again this year which will be at the Westpoint Arena near Exeter, Devon if any of you would like to come and see us face to face. See http://www.ecostrust.org.uk/h4g/ for details and how to get tickets, etc.

I’ll try not to leave it so long next time!!

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To the untrained observer it might seem like we haven’t been writing any blogs for a while. There may in fact be an element of truth to that but it doesn’t mean that we have been idle…..Or had nothing to write about….We were just very busy. We have actually been busy sorting things out with a German supplied of Wood Fibre insulation products which will shortly be coming to the website. Assuming Christmas isn’t too fun packed, shortly into the New Year there should be some pages on the products with downloadable brochures and specifications.

The products are all based around wood fibres, which mostly come from pulped waste softwood from the timber industry. Most are formed in to boards of various thicknesses and have uses ranging from simple insulation to sarking boards and boards which can be rendered with only a 6mm render. The boards perform extremely well in terms of insulation but also have very high levels of heat storage, enabling them to even out internal temperatures of buildings very effectively. As the boards are made from waste timber they are extremely sustainable and fairly competitive on price.

The company we’ve joined fores with is called Unger-Diffutherm and the range is Udi and it really is a complete range of complete systems for virtually every possible scenario. They’ve even managed to form wood fibres into a flexible slab, much like sheeps wool, which gives very good thermal insulation but also great ease of installation.

We are hoping to run courses for contractors next year which would train them to install the materials and enable them to offer a 15 year guarantee. No other manufacturer offers this yet so it should be a good selling point for the materials and for Eco-Builders alike.

I’ll try not to leave it so long before the next blog this time.

Finally, after a mere 18 months we have manged to get the new website up and running for the construction side of Back to Earth, Natural Building Solutions. The site has the same clean, fresh look that this one does but covers how we work, the materials we use and some portfolio projects we have recently completed. It has been a really good exercise to get the site up and running as we have had to tie up various loose ends to enable us to complete it. There are still a few finished photos to come yet but basically it’s there.

The site’s portfolio contains various examples of cob newbuild and repairs that we have undertaken this year. They aren’t necessarily the most complex cob repairs that we have ever done but they are recent. The Hemcrete buildings featured in the site are good examples but we have some much larger projects coming through which may replace them. The lime rendering examples show a good snapshot of how we use various methods to apply the different types of renders we use, normally dependent on substrate and location.

The site has also outlined the benefits of being able to offer a complete service to customers. From initial sale, technical support and practical advice to on-site training or complete installation. The overwhelming response from architects and customers new to these materials is positive, they greatly appreciate our experience and practical knowledge.

See what you think at http://www.naturalbuildingsolutions.co.uk.