Building house as "eco friendly" as possible

WHIP IT!

My folks are looking to build a large-ish house along with a small barn, a couple of stables and a horse-walker.

They've been looking into the idea of erecting a 'windmill' and using solar panels as much as possible to make the house as eco-friendly as possible.

Particularly in the barn where the horse-walker would use alot of energy and the need for almost constant warm water for horses can prove expensive.

The site is fairly high on a hill, I don't know if that's important or not for the use of a windmill or whatever...

When it comes to the planning process, are plans like this looked upon favourably by the Planners or would the proposed erection of a windmill be a 'blackmark' so to speak??

Can anyone tell me anymore about these methods or recommend any other similiar ways to create your own/conserve energy??

Any websites or links would be greatly appreciated also.

TIV

sydthebeat

wind turbines are exempt from planning as per SI 83 of 2007

subject to

1. The turbine shall not be erected on or
within the curtilage of a house of a wind attached to the house or any building or other
turbine. structure within its curtilage.
2. The total height of the turbine shall not
exceed 13 metres.
3. The rotor diameter shall not exceed 6
metres.
4. The minimum clearance between the lower
tip of the rotor and ground level shall not be
less than 3 metres.
5. The supporting tower shall be a distance of
not less than the total structure height
(including the blade of the turbine at the
highest point of its arc) plus one metre from
any party boundary.
6. Noise levels must not exceed 43db(A)
during normal operation, or in excess of
5db(A) above the background noise,
whichever is greater, as measured from the
nearest neighbouring inhabited dwelling.
7. No more than one turbine shall be erected
within the curtilage of a house.
8. No such structure shall be constructed,
erected or placed forward of the front wall of
a house.
9. All turbine components shall have a matt,
non-reflective finish and the blade shall be
made of material that does not deflect
telecommunication signals.
10. No sign, advertisement or object, not
required for the functioning or safety of the
turbine shall be attached to or exhibited on
the wind turbine.

WHIP IT!

Thanks Syd

Anyone any more advice about the above?

sinnerboy

http://www.sei.ie/Renewables/Renewable_Energy_for_the_Homeowner/SEI_Passive_House_A4.pdf

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Green%20Building%20Bible&tag=swoggle37789-21&search-alias=stripbooks

Carlow52

This the link to the SI pasted by S_T_B

http://www.environ.ie/en/Legislation/DevelopmentandHousing/Planning/FileDownLoad,1486,en.pdf

The 2 column table in the SI did not paste well for the first bit so here is my offering

CLASS 2
(b) The construction, erection or placing within the curtilage of a house of a wind turbine.

1. The turbine shall not be erected on or
attached to the house or any building or other
structure within its curtilage.
2. The total height of the turbine shall not
exceed 13 metres.
3. The rotor diameter shall not exceed 6
metres.
4. The minimum clearance between the lower
tip of the rotor and ground level shall not be
less than 3 metres.
5. The supporting tower shall be a distance of
not less than the total structure height
(including the blade of the turbine at the
highest point of its arc) plus one metre from
any party boundary.
6. Noise levels must not exceed 43db(A)
during normal operation, or in excess of
5db(A) above the background noise,
whichever is greater, as measured from the
nearest neighbouring inhabited dwelling.
7. No more than one turbine shall be erected
within the curtilage of a house.
8. No such structure shall be constructed,
erected or placed forward of the front wall of
a house.
9. All turbine components shall have a matt,
non-reflective finish and the blade shall be
made of material that does not deflect
telecommunication signals.
10. No sign, advertisement or object, not
required for the functioning or safety of the
turbine shall be attached to or exhibited on
the wind turbine.

---

If they decide to do this, go for the largest diameter turbine possible, which is 6m as per the regs for no planning.

The reason being that the area of a circle is pi * r* r

so
if radius is 1: area is pi
if radius is 3: area is 9 pi

The other key factor is wind speed which increases with height so the higher the better.

Solar thermal energy, eg hot water can be stored for use when required but elec energy from the turbine can not be easily stored as elec so maybe just stick an electric element in the HW tank to use it up

MeatProduct

Insulate the crap out of it. I'm doing up my place at the moment with a German carpenter friend of mine and we're putting in 15cm of insulation. It's eco friendly because I'll be spending/consuming much less to heat it.

If you haven't already take a look at passive solar design, there are good design ideas that can be borrowed from. Also Bau Biology have good things to look at. Biologic architecture is a good term to search for on Google.

Mostly common sense stuff but it's amazing how much we ignore common sense when it comes to building our homes.

Nick

Slig

Apart from everything else the only problems I can see with your proposal is the building on top of the hill. This is something that should be avoided.

Connacht

Whip,
You are, if you don't mind me saying, focusing too much on one detail.
When building new, the most important things are site location (preferably not on top of a hill) and orientation (preferably facing S or SW). Big windows on south facing, small on north facing gives you some 'passive house' characterisitcs, allowing the sun to naturally heat from the south and avoiding heat loss through the north.
But then insulate properly - 15 cm is much too little if using traditional fibreglass. You need 30 cm minimum.
Make sure the walls are properly insulated.
Only then go looking at renewable or any other kind of energy. Get the house right first.

MeatProduct

Connacht wrote: »

Whip,

But then insulate properly - 15 cm is much too little if using traditional fibreglass. You need 30 cm minimum.right first.

Hello Connacht!

We're using two layers separated by 12mils of osb. Rockwool and sheeps wool. The last project we did the same but with all sheeps wool and the house was impressively efficient. It's really down to clever wall design and where the insulation is located in the wall.

Nick