House planning help Podcast

The house planning help Podcast #3 features an interview with Pat Wilkinson of Touchwood Homes talking about low energy houses in general, and why we believe in the passivhaus standard. Find out more at;

http://www.houseplanninghelp.com/2012/08/28/hph003-the-passivhaus-standard-1-a-passivhaus-builders-story-passive-house/

Touchwood self builder's air tight frame

Usually we would design, supply and erect the air tight timber frame for your new home. For dedicated self builders we can also design and supply only, allowing you to put your own house up. For this setup we would be on site for the unload and then provide a few days training with plans  delivered allowing you to carry on the build with your team. A client based in Sussex recently installed a Touchwood frame this way and commented:

'The Touchwood system provided a robust long term air tight layer for the frame, and installing it was a strightforward task - although more complex areas around dormers were more time consuming'. Richard, Sussex.

If you are a self builder wishing to put your own frame up, please get in touch - we can design, engineer and supply the complete frame. Often client's prefer us to put the frame up with them organising the follow on trades, though if you prefer to put it up yourself that is fine - Richard's project, achieving an airtight result of 0.3 ac/h demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach.

A Touchwood designed and supplied air tight frame in Sussex which was put up by the client himself has just had an air tightness test, and achieved a result of 0.3 ac/h @50Pa. This is a result few in the industry achieve, for a self builder to do this shows the dedication his team has put into the build, along with the effectiveness of our air tight detailing built into our frames.

We can design and supply air tight frames for any client who wishes to put the house up themselves, or our team can erect the frame for you if preferred.

See below for images of this exciting self build project.

 Self build in Sussex

Visit Touchwood at the Home Building and Renovation show in Birmingham!

Touchwood will be exhibiting at the National Homebuilding and Renovation show at the NEC in Birmingham. We look forward to seeing you there!

Jackson project air test

In November we had the air test performed on our Jackson project in Hampshire, which achieved another great result for Touchwood of 0.16m3/m2.hr @50Pa - well within the Passivhaus limit of 0.6, and roughly 60x better than building regs.

The building will be PH certified and features our passivhaus foundation system, where the entire building's slab is within the house's thermal envelope so is providing substantial thermal mass. Also within our package is the design, installation and commissioning of a market leading PAUL heat recovery unit. As always with our frames the duct routes are incorporated early in the frame design so all duct holes are pre-cut within the frame allowing robust, rigid Lindab duct work to be used - we avoid flexible duct work since it is not robust in the long term. 

 

heating demand is 10kWh/m2/year, well within the 15kWh/m2/year limit for passivhaus. This equates to a minimal heating demand of 2,100Kwh/year, an amount delivered via the MVHR duct work

Howe Park receives Passivhaus certification!

The Howe Park project for which Touchwood designed, supplied and erected the timber frame structure received Passivhaus certification in July - a crucial component to receiveing the certification being the Touchwood airtightness result.

Howe Park Project

The Howe Park project where we designed, supplied and erected the timber frame (with the rest of the contract by Parkway Construction) has now received it's final air tightness result of 0.09m3/m2.hr@50Pa - this is more than 100x better than the building regulations figure of 10.0, a figure we think is the best in the UK!

Lowest air test yet!

Our Howe Park Passivhaus project we have just received an air test result of 0.15 Air Changes / hour - from our research this is one of, if not the best UK air tight result yet!

Suffolk Project

Touchwood Homes have just had the air test completed on our Low Impact House project in Suffolk and acheived a stunning result of 0.42! One of the best in the UK.