Category: Water systems


This week Kevin McCloud returned to the Hedgehog Project in Brighton on Grand Designs and showed how that housing co-operative has moved on from being an innovative self-build to building roots in the community – reflecting our experience here at Hockerton Housing Project.

We are hoping that the planners at Newark and Sherwood will have been watching, as a plan for a new self-build partnership in Hockerton is now under consideration.  The plan is to demolish a redundant industrial building and replace it with five two-storey homes (up to 3 bedrooms) and two one-storey, one bed homes.

Hockerton Housing Project is supportive of the plans for a number of reasons:

  1. The energy efficient design will deliver 80% less carbon and 60% lower running cost than homes built to today’s minimum standards.
  2. Each dwelling will have a share in Hockerton’s community-owned wind turbine to ‘offset’ the carbon content of remaining energy use.
  3. Rainwater harvesting and water efficient appliances will limit demand for mains water, and a reedbed will be used to avoid nasty odours from sewage.
  4. Affordable housing allows people with a wider range of skills and expertise to live in rural areas.
  5. The co-operative nature of the development, both in its build and its maintenance, means pride will be taken in the quality of the work on buildings and landscaping.
  6. The more people resident in the village, the better for local businesses such as the farm shop, the pub,  restaurant and ice-cream parlour.

Self-build partnerships are rare, but offer many benefits, so let’s hope the planning officials see the merit of putting brownfield land to better use as a site for new affordable homes in Hockerton, further strengthening the village’s reputation as a hub of innovative and affordable energy efficient homes.

If you are interested in understanding how we developed our self-build at Hockerton Housing Project, and how the co-operative works in practice, make a new year’s resolution to come on one of our Sustainable Living Tours – the next one is 19 January 2013.

Date posted: December 31, 2012 | Author: | 2 Comments »

Categories: Co-Housing Eco homes New Build Rainwater Harvesting Reed Beds Sustainable living

Hockerton Housing Project has been hosting tours for over ten years, showing over 20,000 people around the Project and its homes to help them understand how homes and communities can meet the energy and environmental challenges of the 21st century.

The most frequent visitors come from our local universities in Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, Loughborough and Lincoln but we’re keen to see more – both from other universities and from a greater range of courses.  Our Project is not just about the housing or the technical infrastructure; it can be used to illustrate a range of studies including the politics of communities and the role of sustainability in health services.

Feedback suggests a visit to us can really inspire students…

Thanks again for a great day and for inspiring my students!

Reader in Environmental Geography, Geography Department,University of Leicester

It was a super experience and the students were buzzing all the way home.

Associate Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

Many thanks for another superb visit.  It gives the students a real insight into the options for more sustainable living and really gives them something to think about.

Queen Elizabeth High School for Girls

I’d just like to thank you personally for inviting us in your homes and inspiring future generations with your amazing work. It was such a productive experience as we got to see everything we’ve been taught in our module in real life.  I thought it was all just theory but to see it up and running and so successful gave me great joy.

Engineering student, Loughborough University

We’ve prepared a short guide to these visits for lecturers and teachers, and are keen to hear from lecturers how you think we could help you bring sustainability to life in your classroom or through a visit to Hockerton Housing Project.

Date posted: November 19, 2012 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Eco homes Renewable energy Sustainable living Water systems

HHP has two completely separate autonomous rainwater systems – potable and non-potable. Since the completion of the houses in 1998, water from both systems has been tested regularly.

Our latest results (September 2011) indicate that our drinking water is perhaps cleaner than most branded bottled water!  Could it really be that our filtered rainwater can be just as clean as the commercial products that line our supermarket shelves?

Broadly speaking there are two general categories of analysis; metals and bacteriological. In our case, the former remained consistently low with the exception of aluminium. Although previous years’ test results showed zero aluminium, September 2011 sample showed levels of 0.109mg/l. This figure is acceptable within the limits for small water systems (0.2 per mg/l) but larger water treatment plants are limited to 0.1 mg/l. Whatever limit we choose, we still feel this is unaccountably high – can anyone shed any light on this contaminant?

The bacteriological analysis proved to be both interesting and reassuring. Of all these, the Total Viable Count result (TVC) was of most interest. The test estimates the total amount of living organisms in a set volume of water at two separate temperatures; 22ºC (TVC 22C) and 37ºC (TVC 37C). The samples are left at that those temperatures for a period of 2 days and 3 days respectively, allowing any organisms present to populate the sample. These tests  have been carried out on bottled waters with levels ranging between 42/ml and 32,659/ml for TVC 22C and between 3/ml to 1,950/ml for TVC 37C. Our drinking water, by comparison, showed 0/ml and 20/ml respectively. Even our aquaculture lake, which is full of fish, and receives liquid effluent from the reed bed, still manages to produce low results at TVC 22C 166/ml!

The irony is that even though we residents at Hockerton Housing Project consume approximately 2000 litres each per year of our harvested rainwater, we still have to provide paying visitors with bottled water! This is because, to comply with current health and safety guidelines, we would have to test our water on a monthly basis, currently around £1200 per year. Compare this with our visitors’ consumption of around 50 bottles of branded water per year, around £50 – the figures speak for themselves! (People on our tours also appreciate the tea, coffee and some wonderful local apple juice we supply for free!)

Date posted: January 25, 2012 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Rainwater Harvesting Water systems

The generally recommeded level of loft insulation, and that provided in most new build houses today, is 250-300mm.  The houses already had about 250mm of insulation in the loft, but we have topped that up to between 600-700mm.  In addition, we have then sealed the loft hatch so that occupants cannot then compact the insulation by storing lots of belongings on top of it; if loft insulation is compacted, a lot of the benefit of the insulation is lost – it restricts heat transfer because of the air pockets within the fibres.

Significant levels of insulation in the loft

Although there is no access to the loft, the houses now additional storage areas in the sun space and porch.

Insulated thermal store

The hot water in the houses is provided by a super-insulated thermal store heated with an electric immersion heater.  A thermal store is like a traditional hot water cylinder, but the key difference is that the hot water in the cylinder is not the hot water used, instead it simply acts as a heat storage mechanism, hence the term thermal store.  The hot water delivered to taps and showers, is actually cold water directly from the mains supply, which is then passed through a large copper coil (heat exchanger) within the thermal store, and in doing so extracts energy from the hot water in the store to heat it.  As the water in the cylinder is not being used directly, it does not need to be heated to 60 degrees to kill legionella bacteria; instead it can be kept at aorund 45 degrees, significantly reducing energy consumption.  The hot water delivered is around 40 degrees, more than adequate for washing and showering.

Super insulated thermal store - it is in there, honest!

Date posted: September 15, 2010 | Author: | 1 Comment »

Categories: Eco homes Energy Efficient Hot Water Existing Homes Water systems

On Tuesday 16th May, Francesca (age 11 and resident of HHP) appeared on BBC2’s new early morning children’s programme, Level Up, explaining how the homes at HHP collect, use and treat water. This was compared with two other children and how they collect and use water, particularly in relation to toilets.

On Thursday 18th May, one of the other Project children, Naomi Tilley (age 10) will appear on the same programme with her Dad, using a tandem to get to school.

 

Date posted: May 17, 2006 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Reed Beds Sustainable living Water systems