Week 24, Day 5:
- The second day of window installation, though only really half a day because of waiting for a further delivery (now due on Monday)
- More preparation of the plywood boxes for the external doors
Week 24, Day 5
View from main camera location, showing clerestory windows
One of the “temporary” Living Room windows, incorrectly supplied in White rather than Dark Grey
Week 24, Day 5 by Marsh Flatts Farm Self Build Diary is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Hi David
Was interested to read about your experience finding building contractors. We’ve just put our job out to tender and had four refusals! It’s apparently too complicated to build to Passivhaus standards. I thought builders would welcome the opportunity to learn new skills which will become standard. The quotes are also horrendously expensive as the contractors need to build in provisions for the energy efficiency.
Interested to know what timber cladding you’ve used – we’re planning on using Western Red Cedar. Would appreciate any tips/advice that might be helpful.
Thank you!
Jan
Hi Jan,
Thanks for your comment. The cladding is indeed Western Red Cedar, I think from Silva Timber – the boards have arrived on site but none have been installed yet. The stone cladding around the ground floor walls is proving more difficult to source (if anyone has any recommendations for real sandstone cladding please let me know).
In terms of finding contractors, your experience sounds very similar to mine. Many of the Passivhaus aspects get addressed by the design and the specification (of windows, ventilation, insulation etc.) The main thing you need your building contractor to deliver is the high degree of air tightness. The blower door test will confirm whether that has been achieved, but you need a contractor who understands just how careful they need to be with sealing every gap as they go along – otherwise they’ll get a big shock when they fail the blower door test!
There are some excellent Passivhaus contractors out there but they can afford to be selective about the projects they take on. There are more clients asking for Pasivhaus than there are contractors geared up to deliver it right now, so unfortunately you’ll probably need to pay a premium and you’ll need to wait a while before they can start. (My contractor’s next client has been lined up for months already.)
I would advise anyone thinking of commissioning a Passivhaus to join the AECB (https://www.aecb.net) as a “Supporter” member and ideally to attend their annual conference or participate in local group activities. That’s probably the best way to find designers and contractors who understand Passivhaus (or are keen to learn).
David