extension and ‘eco’ refurbishment
kelty, fife
The brief for this project was brilliant, the client had concentrated on creating a fantastic garden producing large amounts of vegetables and fruit but the cottage dating back to the 1850’s was in need of attention.
As the client was looking forward to retirement, the priority for the renovation was to make the house as low maintenance and energy efficient as possible. Sustainability was also a priority in the design and construction of the alterations.
It was proposed to replace the poorly built, flat roofed kitchen extension with a new kitchen extension with a pitched slate roof and lead valley gutter to resolve roof drainage issues. A small out building was added consisiting of a secure laundry/garden store and a potting shed and a timber framed car shelter.
An air source heat pump was installed to deal with heating and hot water demands, the cold feed of which is pre-warmed by ‘evacuated tube’ type solar water heaters on a south facing roof. The beauty of the air source heat pump was that no digging was required in the garden and the ‘evacuated tube’ solar panels are particularly efficient as they can extract energy UV light whether the sky is sunny or overcast. Both of these elements received 30% grant assistance from the Scottish Community and Householder Renewables Initiative (SCHRI). A wood burning stove was installed in the living room and a solid fuel Rayburn were installed to supplement the heat pump using carbon neutral fuels.
The client was very environmentally aware so construction materials were assessed in terms of their whole life cycle. The new timber framed kitchen extension was insulated with recycled cotton and hemp batts and wood fibre insulation, highly efficient timber windows replaced the originals and ‘Warmcell’ recycled newspaper insulation was used in the existing roof space over the whole house.