Firstly
let me stress, I am not an architect or an engineer, nor am
I a builder or developer, however, I decided to design and build
my house in France myself with the occasional help of friends
and neighbours for two reasons. For one thing, I couldn’t
afford to pay builders to build it for me, but primarily I was
(and am,) interested and excited by the idea of self-building
a house on the fly around my old barn.
When I decided to convert the barn into a new house I wanted
to incorporate as many environmentally friendly principles into
the building as were economically possible. The obvious reasoning
for this being that, as I have become more environmentally aware,
it has become patently clear to me that we must do our best
to live in balance with our planet rather than simply exploiting
it. The warning signs for this are everywhere and even the sceptics
would admit that there is cause for concern.
I would argue that we simply cannot afford to take chances –
and that even if global warming is not a 100% proven fact, we
have the facilities NOW to cut down radically on the waste materials
which we pump into our atmosphere and bury in our soil, and
to not take advantage of that knowledge immediately is absolutely
senseless.
Hence, when building the house I had to consider what would
be the overall influences on the environment determined by:
- Manufacture of the products used in the house.
- Delivery distances for non locally-manufactured products.
- Sustainability of the sources from which the products
have come.
- Use of pesticides and other harmful treatments on the
products.
- Durability of the products.
- Recyclability of the products at the end of the building’s
lifespan.
- Energy efficiency of the products.
- Ease of assembly.
- Ease of maintenance.
- Likelihood of the product out-gassing after installation.
So, every product used in the building has had to on balance
score well in most of these fields. There are obvious exceptions
– I minimised the amount of concrete needed for the
foundation slab by forming the base carefully in gravel –
but all the same, more concrete went into the structure than
I would have liked. These are things you learn as you go along.
On the whole I don’t seem to have made too many mistakes,
but I haven’t finished yet!!! Your thoughts and comments
would be welcome.
I have had a LOT of help with my building, in fact I would
never have got as far as I have if all of these people had
not been around to help me, so a heartfelt THANKYOU to:
- Sue Philips – architect
- Neal Mason – builder extraordinaire
- Robert and Anastasia Nicholas – architects
- Dani Tinero – architect
- Jean Flajoula – unstintingly helpful neighbour
- Catherine Beldon – amazing stair pourer
- Gerard Cano - builder
- Anthony Maiden – roofer and wall builder
- Mac Maiklem – general oracle
- Guy Medd – pipe and terrace layer
- Tim Maloney - master of the linseed oil brush
- Ravi Ramamrutham – technology guru
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