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Super Insulated Buildings
Key to zero carbon building design is insulation. To minimise energy consumed in heating the volume of the building, insulation should he highly specified and as efficient and effective as possible. There are varying categories of super insulated buildings.
Zero Heat Building
Through highly specified insulation and draft proofing the Zero Heat Building, requires no additional heating, except for in extreme conditions. The heat provided by the occupants’ bodies, household appliances, the sun and artificial lighting is sufficient to maintain a comfortable temperature during normal occupancy. Typically such buildings require triple glazed windows and doors, insulation of 500mm of cellulose fibre the roof, 300mm of expanded polystyrene in the floor, and a 250mm filled wall cavity.
Zero CO2 Building
A Zero Heat Building when supplied with power and heating from renewable sources becomes a Zero CO2 Building. A further important criteria is that it must produce zero net CO2 emissions over its lifetime.
The Autonomous Building
Remove a Zero CO2 Building from mains gas, water, electricity and sewage services, provide it with a method of electricity generation, sewage disposal and water collection solutions (all of which are renewable, sustainable and ecologically sound) and you have an autonomous building.
February 24th, 2008 at 1:28 am
There is a lot of talk on Zero Carbon Housing but more is required in the Action part.
April 11th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
i am looking to build a zero carbon zero co2 autonomous house i have a property in the flood plane on green belt on a 16 acre site i am in very early stages of planning the environment agency love the idea the biggest problem i can see is wind turbines and the green belt policy on them i have lots of out buildings for pv cells space for ground source heat water table 2 meters down can i achive the goal with out wind turbines ? am having meeting with edf energy to see if i can site turbines next to the two pilons in my field to hide them somewhat i also have small brook hope to get 1kw out of to be honest i have mains water on site so sinking a well seems daft to me i will harvest the rain i do think that if you can not ofset the carbon used to build the house it should not be classed zero carbon i am planting 5 acre wood this should go a long way towards this i wood value any comments good or bad and will update progress roger carr