Monthly Archives: November 2011

26th January – AECB Lancashire Local Group joint event with NFB, CIAT & CIOB

Posted on November 28, 2011 by debbie

AECB Trustee, Peter Wilkinson, has brought together, for a joint event



  • AECB
  • National Federation of Builders
  • Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists
  • Chartered Institute of Building


The event will take place at Burnley College, Princess Way, Burnley, Lancashire BB12 0AN commencing at 6.30 pm on 26th January 2012.


The meeting will include (from 7.00 pm) a 45-minute presentation by Stephen Baker of Natural Building Technologies on ‘Natural Building Products in Construction’ including air tightness and vapour permeability of natural building materials.  This will be followed by a question and answer session and general open debate.

Burnley College have kindly offered to provide refreshments and we are pleased that staff interested in the event will be able to join us on the night. Free parking will be available in the main college car park at the rear of the campus.


RSVP  “debbie” at “aecb.net” or Peter Stott who is the leader of the Lancashire Group.

This is a jointly badged event open to all members of the four organisations but numbers are limited & will be on a ‘first come first serve’ basis.

Early booking is recommended for what is anticipated to be a popular event.

(Confirmed attendees to report to the main college reception on arrival where they will be met and taken to the room)

 

Some information from the Natural Building Technologies website . . . .

“Natural Building Technologies (NBT) is the UK’s leading supplier of sustainable building envelope systems.  NBT’s product range includes environmentally sound structural building systems for walls, roofs and floors, as well as ranges of ecological paints, mineral plasters and renders, and natural fibre insulation.”

This is a jointly badged event open to all members of the four organisations but numbers are limited & will be on a ‘first come first serve’ basis. Please RSVP to me as soon as you can to enable the college to sort out logistics. We hope that this will be the first of future joint events between a number of organisations within the construction sector in the region, with the express interest of disseminating sustainable best practice & the opportunity for all to network with other construction groups.

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Contraction and Convergence

Posted on November 23, 2011 by pheriche

Contraction & Convergence


C & C is a science-based, equitable framework for cutting human-induced carbon emissions. It was developed in the early 1990 ‘s by a small group led by Aubrey Meyer, a musician and composer turned environmentalist, who has campaigned for it ever since. C&C Website

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Hampshire Group learn about VENTILATION and HEAT PUMPS on 12th December in West Sussex

Posted on November 23, 2011 by debbie

The Hampshire Local Group – all AECB members welcome -  are meeting up on 12th December at Zehnder Comfosystems, a Founder Member of the Passivhaus Trust.

This will include technical information on their Zehnder ComfoAir range of heat recovery units that have been certified by the Passivhaus Institute.  The presentation by Zehnder will cover cooling for thermally tight properties;  semi rigid ducting – future proof for cleaning and  maintenance;  heat recovery units;  geothermal heat pumps;  geothermal heat exchangers

Time and Venue:  6.30 for 7.00 on 12th December 2011at Zehnder Comfosystems, Brookside Avenue, Rustington, West Sussex BN16 3LF www.comfosystems.co.uk

This Local Group meeting – held at the premises of Greenwood (owned by Zehnder) in Sussex – was attended by only half a dozen AECB members as it was on the evening of a great storm on the south coast when only the brave or mad (or both) ventured out.

However, it is planned to have another, similar event during the coming months, following the success of this one organised by Hampshire Group Leader, Brian Layton.  

 

Those attending learned much from both the technical presentation as well as the tour of the MVHR training facilities and exhibition areas of ventilation products. It was an opportunity to see mock-ups of the various parts of the installations and have frank discussions amongst ourselves as well as the Zehnder ‘techie’ guys on hand. 

Although Zehnder concentrates on products for Passivhaus – it is a founder member of the UK Passivhaus Trust – Greenwood has been designing ventilation systems for many years in the UK and the meeting also touched on various options for buildings where a high level of airtightness is not possible/viable. 

All in all it was a most enjoyable evening, and although members did manage to get home through the storm, it would not have been the worst place to be stranded – warm and well ventilated and with plenty of eats and drinks!

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AECB Water Standards

Posted on November 17, 2011 by emma

The SWIG – The Sustainable Water Industry Group – first Awards Ceremony was at the top of the GLA building, where you get a 180o panoramic view of London roofs.  The purpose of the ceremony was to raise the profile and awareness of sustainable water use, publically recognising the nominees and winning projects.  A warm welcoming address was given by Mr Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor’s Director of Environment.  Awards were presented by leading industry personality and TV presenter, Dusty Gedge.  As part of his introduction he included the study of the potential for greening London roofs. He suggested that the area of roofs within 6km circle centred on Trafalgar Square that could be greened is 10 million m2 of which about half a million m2 has been installed so far!  So that was an encouraging start to the proceedings.

Fran Bradshaw collects SWIG award

 

Each award was introduced very carefully, so that you got a good idea of why the prize was awarded, and the AECB standard which won a ‘products‘ award, was particularly praised for its good sense. The two tier structure, ‘good’ and ‘best’ practice was particularly mentioned, and the main comment was that the AECB could be promoting the standard and show people it. The standard is used by all designers in both domestic and non-domestic buildings, to optimise the water and energy use of that building.

For more details on our Water Standards please see http://www.carbonlite.org.uk/carbonlite/

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Localism Bill gets Royal Assent but much still to do to secure a workable planning system

Posted on November 17, 2011 by emma

The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) has supported the underlying objectives of the Localism Bill and very much welcomed the central role of planning at the heart of the localism agenda. But they believe the new Localism Act will fail to deliver a workable planning system unless a number of key issues are resolved including robust transition arrangements, changes to the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the Local Planning Regulations and also proper resourcing for the new planning system.

For further details see http://www.rtpi.org.uk/item/4914

 

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Climate Variability and Climate Change: The New Climate Dice

Posted on November 14, 2011 by emma

Was this year’s Texas anomaly a product of human-made global warming?  See discussion available on web site.  Criticisms welcome — no plan to submit a paper for publication, but we may consider that after some high priority papers are finished.

We made this analysis to address the question (“how long must we wait until the charlatans are smoked out?”) raised in It’s a Hard-Knock Butterfly’s life.  Not very long, it seems, if we can get people to open their eyes.

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Talks on Two Projects at The Somerset, Wiltshire, Avon & Dorset Local Group Meeting on 1st December

Posted on November 11, 2011 by debbie

The next Local Group event in Somerset will start at  7.30pm on Thursday 1st December 2011 at The Naval Room at the Archangel, 1 King Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1BH. Tel: 01373 456111

Colin Powell, Director of GCP Architects is to give a presentation on Hacknell Farm, Somerset (Housing development to near PassivHaus standard)
“GCP Architects provide design stage analysis and advice, including building modelling for passive and active energy reduction, sustainable construction choices and specification. Their holistic approach provides analysis and options for the design team to find the optimum solution.  They also deliver training for clients and contractors to assist in developing sustainable development procedures.” (www.gcparch.co.uk)

followed by Matt Mason & Paul Reynolds talking about their project in Spring Road, Frome (Code 6 House)

Future meetings of the Somerset, Wiltshire, Avon & Dorset Group are planned for the second Thursday of every month – all AECB members welcome (and non-AECB members by arrangement)
RSVP to the group leader,  Mark Kingsley, or Debbie Mauger – email  “debbie” at “aecb.net”

Feedback on the meeting . . . . . .

Although only one of the two proposed projects was presented,  the discussions were lively and went on long after the meeting was over.  About a dozen enthusiastic members – with a wide variety of expertise and experience – discussed and debated the benefits and issues relating to a new dwelling in Spring Road which used Insulated Concrete Form building systems, AECB member Nudura. 

 

The builders, Matt Mason & Paul Reynolds gave a most informative presentation of an interesting project and it was very helpful to have a technical representative of Nudura, to join the discussions.  It was a a very successful combination – the builder and the supplier of the system each giving different aspects on the build.  The Group met in a private room of the Archangel pub/restaurant in Frome – a popular venue which enabled members to continue drinking and getting together over dinner after the meeting ended. 

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2011 Annual Conference: Feedback

Posted on November 5, 2011 by emma

A synopsis of the feedback from this year’s conference is now available on the AECB

AECB Conference 2011

website. The feedback has been edited, mostly removing specific names from comments and correcting a mountain of spelling mistakes!  We know you are busy! As always happens many of the points will contradict each other but we will be looking at all of them when planning next year’s event.

A couple of points do crop up each year and below are our thoughts:-

Food

As always with any event the feedback on the food varies a lot but we hope to have answered a couple of specific points.

  • Apologies but we should have had coffee when people arrived and we are not sure why that didn’t happen – some kind of misunderstanding between us and the University’s catering unit.  We had also not asked for caffeine free coffee.
  • We specify vegetarian food because if we had a meat option we would feel we would have to state how the meat was reared, etc.  In a commercial venue this would be difficult (but not impossible).  It was considered that for two buffets and one meal it would be easier to stick with the vegetarian option.  As the evening meal is the same for everyone we really have to go with a vegetarian option.
  • The evening meal was rushed and we knew this would be a problem when we booked it because the other conference had booked the venue from 8.00pm.  We could have had another buffet but that didn’t seem appropriate.

Workshops

  • There are a range of comments on the workshops but one that does come up every year is repeating workshops.  It is considered that as we don’t pay the workshop presenters and they also want to participate in the Conference as well asking them to run a workshop twice is a lot to ask.
  • We are looking at getting some of the workshops recorded next year.

If you would like to make any further comments about the 2011 Conference please either contact our Business Operations Manager, Gill Rivers on gill@aecb.net or leave your feedback on the discussion Forum which has been set up on the AECB website.

CPD Certificates

CPD Certificates relating to the Conference workshops are to be issued to those who have requested them.  If anyone else who attended the Conference requires a certificate please contact Neill Lewis on neill.lewis@aecb.net.

 

AECB Conference 2011

Conference Photographs

About 30 photographs from the 2011 Conference have been posted on the AECB Facebook page.

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Consultations Open on FiTs, Renewables and Biofuels

Posted on November 5, 2011 by emma

The 2011 consultation season is under way with a vengeance!

First on the list should have been the Green Deal consultation – long awaited details on how the Government expects the Green Deal, as associated Energy Company Obligation subsidies, to work on the ground. But the document, like Alice in Wonderland’s jam, is still expected ‘in a few weeks’ as Network goes to press. Keep an eye on Network and the AECB news pages http://aecb.net/news/ for more information.

In the meantime what IS available is the consultation on the review of feed-in tariffs for solar PV Continue reading →

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LOCAL GROUP NEWS

Posted on November 5, 2011 by emma

Full details of the events listed below and forthcoming events can be found on the website Forum (follow the blue link to Local Groups), AECB News Platform or email debbie@aecb.net to request that your name be added to a Local Group mailing list. 

Events:

Nottingham and East Midlands Group

Tina Holt has invited the Nottingham and East Midlands Group to the fifth event in Transition West Bridgford’s series ‘Eco Houses Under Construction’.  Gil Schalom, leader of the Local Group, encouraged you to take advantage of this rare opportunity to visit a Zero Carbon Barn Conversion. Continue reading →

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