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!!
.