LEAP

Shepherd's Barn Passivhaus EnerPHit Plus

The existing barn was structurally unsound and required significant underpinning and reconstruction. The barn was designed to afford a better quality of life whilst recognising challenging planning constraints. Tight budget constraints lead client/owners Paul and Sonny Shepherd to manage the construction themselves. This modest one-and-a-half-storey home is the North East’s first certified Passivhaus retrofit, and achieved EnerPHit PLUS certification, which means it generates more energy than it needs to operate. The 10.75 kWp photovoltaic array provides energy for use in the home, charges a Tesla Powerwall, exports electricity to the national grid and raised the EPC rating to A. The dwelling achieves Zero Carbon status (-1.8 tonnes of CO2/year according to SAP) and satisfies the RIBA 2030 targets for Operational and Whole Life Embodied Carbon. The barn achieves a 30% reduction in emissions compared to the RIBA 2030 target for residential/domestic property, and a LETI ‘A’ rating for Upfront (208.39 kgCO2e/m2) and Whole-life carbon (380.19 kgCO2e/m2). To all intents and purposes other on-site construction waste was all-but eliminated as the materials efficiency strategy limited waste to pre-existing hazardous materials, and a very small quantity of insulation. 24-months of building performance evaluation shows in-use energy demand and summer comfort (>25C for <2% of the year) match design intent. The small holding includes a wildflower meadow, beehives, a small, planted wood of 110 trees and four Miyawaki forests (which grow much faster, jump start the forest creation process and capture more carbon more quickly than neighbouring woodland.