Why Build Green In Spain?

1. Build Green in Spain to Save Money
2. Build Green in Spain to Make Money
3. Build Green in Spain to Be More Comfortable

You might be slightly surprised by these rather egotistical answers: more on them later. In the meantime here is the touchy feely part you were expecting. By the way if you skip this you will miss my best joke.

Eco Vida Home

Build Green For Benevolent Reasons
If you accept that the world has finite resources then the use of global resources has to be sustainable if we are to survive as a civilisation or even as a species. You are probably familiar with the idea of spaceship earth. You only have to see a picture of the earth from space to realise we are stranded on it and floating helplessly through space. Polluting the atmosphere on the earth is about as welcome as a fart in a spaceship!

My personal position on this topic is this. If the Save-the-Planet fraternity turn out to be wrong and we have looked after the environment…..well we all end up living in a cleaner environment. If the climate change sceptics turn out to be wrong and we haven’t looked after the environment…….we all die. So, on the balance of risks it probably makes sense to look after the environment.
Happily there are compelling personal reasons to build green. Even climate change sceptics with hard noses might be interested.

Build Green To Save Money
Building green means lower running costs. Eco stands for economical as well as ecological.

If there is an up-front cost for say, double glazed windows which save on heating bills, then after a few years the additional initial cost has been covered by savings in running costs. You have lower running costs forever.

Payback periods are falling all the time as energy prices rise. I could tell you how much energy prices have risen. But, given that we all know that 80% of statistics are made up, let’s just say that energy prices are rising and will continue to rise.

Building green may imply no additional up-front cost. In many cases thoughtful design can lower running costs for example shading windows, window placement to avoid over heating in summer and maximise solar gains in winter, passive cooling methods and a layout that favours reduced energy consumption. Thoughtful design requires a thoughtful architect but otherwise it’s free: you simply save money by building green.

Saving on energy consumption may just be a matter of choice. For example choose a modern biomass stove instead of oil fired central heating: same result, comparable cost, one is green and saves money one isn’t and doesn’t.

Build Green To Make Money
Studies show people will pay up to 30% more for an energy efficient home. That’s an important thought for anyone who is about to invest a considerable sum of money in building a home.

People’s awareness of, and demand for, sustainable architecture is rising all the time. Independent assessors such as BREEAM and LEED and energy certificates which rate your home according to its energy efficiency bring information to the consumer and encourage people to care.

Building Green enhances the value of your investment.

Build Green To Be More Comfortable

Building green will almost certainly make your home more comfortable. It means having airtight windows and doors, i.e. draught free rooms. It means an efficient delivery of heat and coolness such as radiant under floor heating which warms like the sun. Building green means having really effective insulation to prevent overheating in summer and to keep you cool in winter. It also means good sound insulation so you can live in peace and quiet.

Building green means thoughtful architecture which balances your lifestyle, budget, the characteristics of the site, local energy resources and that requires thoughtful architecture that will result in a higher quality of building all round: not some homogenous identikit house which scars the hillside like some modern slum from the early days of the industrial revolution.

We foreigners are living in Spain to enjoy the fabulous sunshine and spectacular views. That means blending the inside with the outside so you can feel in touch with these surroundings in any season. Home should have spaces for the various moods of the day, bathing, playing, reading, cooking, and sharing a meal whatever the weather and whatever the season. That means thoughtful design and that, probably means building green because as you go through a design making choices it is nearly always the case that the green option makes sense.

Build Green for Regulatory Reasons
I was going to tell you about the regulations but after more than 20 years living and amongst my Spanish cousins I have become anarchic like them….. to hell with the regulations!

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Preguntas Mas Frecuentes Sobre Sistemas de Estructura de Madera

¿Los sistemas de estructura de madera son fiables? Después de todo sólo son casas de madera, ¿no?

SEM es un método de construir diseñado por ingenieros cualificados, de calidad asegurada y  probada y es muy común en la mayor parte del mundo desarrollado. Nosotros construimos hoteles, colegios, bloques de apartamentos usando SEM. Como en cualquier otra forma de construcción, el techo, suelo, y paredes pueden ser de ladrillo, azulejos u otros materiales. Los edificios de SEM son construcciones complejas donde la madera es solo uno de los componentes. Ciertamente es una estructura seria.

Puede mirar las fotos de nuestra página web donde encontrará edificios que presentan la misma apariencia exterior que una estructura de hormigón y acero.

SEM son estructuras ligeras. Sin embargo son fuertes, duraderas y de gran precisión. Existen muchos ejemplos de edificios con estructuras de madera que tienen cientos de años. Además la tecnología en cuanto al tratamiento de la madera y la construcción ha avanzado mucho durante los últimos veinte años por lo que este método tan antiguo es actualmente superior al tradicional de hormigón y acero en casi todos los aspectos.

En España no hay tradición de construir con madera. ¿Puede ser esto un problema?

La estructura se construye por partes en una fábrica en Inglaterra y un equipo especializado la monta en el terreno. Una constructora española que controla todo el proceso termina el edificio. Lejos de ser problemático, las obras de mantenimiento son más fáciles porque los cables y los tubos son accesibles y los cambios de la configuración del edificio son simples y se  pueden hacer fácilmente.

¿Son las estructuras SEM apropiadas para el clima caluroso y seco que tiene España en verano?

La madera lleva un tratamiento llamado vac vac que la protege de hongos y cualquier  tipo de insecto. El clima caluroso y seco no deteriora la madera en ningún modo. La mejor prueba de ello es  Estados Unidos que ha promovido este método de construir con excelentes resultados. Su clima varía entre subtropical, desértico y condiciones árticas y construyen con SEM en cualquiera de estas condiciones.

Si el edificio tiene una masa térmica baja se va a sobrecalentar durante el verano. Este es la gran ventaja de construir con hormigón y acero ( o piedra).

Los edificios de SEM pueden y suelen tener un aislamiento muy fuerte, algo que es fácil de conseguir. Este aislamiento es tan eficaz contra el sobrecalentamiento durante el verano como contra el sobre enfriamiento durante el invierno. En otras palabras podemos construir con SEM y lograr las mismas ventajas de tener un edificio con una masa alta térmica.

¿Se ve afectado el valor residual?

No existe ninguna razón para ello. Los edificios de SEM duran más, son más fuertes y superiores en casi todos los aspectos comparados con edificios de hormigón y acero.

¿Por que compraría el SEM a Telframe / Eco Vida y no a cualquier otro proveedor?

Somos expertos en lo que hacemos. Usamos los mejores métodos y los mejores materiales. Tenemos 30 años de experiencia. Además tenemos una presencia física en España y un representante cualificado. Además con la bajada de la libra un SEM que podría haber costado €100,000 durante el verano de 2008 ahora solo costaría €65,000.

¿No va a reducir el empleo en la economía local?

Como las construcciones SEM son mas rápidas, más limpias y mas fáciles que las tradicionales se puede hacer más trabajo y así se puede dar empleo a más personal y crear empleo. Se seguirá necesitando las obras de ladrillos y desgarrador y cimentación y como SEM es mas rápido se puede hacer más en el mismo tiempo. Además existe todas las posibilidades de que una vez esté de moda se montaría fabricas en España lo cual crearía más empleo.

Ejemplos en España

Puedo proveer fotos de una casa recién construida en 2008 con SEM.

Bio

John Wolfendale is a director of Eco Vida, ecological architects and green building specialists. He graduated in Land Economy from Magdalene Cambridge in 1984, and has an additional first class degree in psychology. He has been a Chartered Surveyor for 23 years and lives with his Spanish wife and family in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. www.EcoVidaInternational.com

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Energy Efficient House Orientation

At Eco Vida all our buildings are constructed on a giant revolving turntable which orientates the primary occupied rooms south in the winter for maximum solar gain and north in the summer for maximum shading. The dining room faces east for sunrise at breakfast and spins round west for cocktails at sunset………….only joking!

But such a fantastical proposition illustrates that you have to make some choices when choosing the layout and orientation of your building. You will need to take a holistic approach and consider everything at once. So what are the things to consider?

Where On Earth Are You?

First identify your main challenge from an energy point of view. Is it keeping your home warm in winter or cool in summer? In the northern hemisphere typically energy efficient buildings orientate the principal comfort areas to the south to maximize the effect of solar heating in the winter. If you are in a hot part of northern Europe you may want to do the reverse. Again it will depend on the total mix.

What’s Really Good About Your Site?

What are the particular conditions of your site? Are there mountains or trees which will affect the solar impact during different seasons at different times of the day? Deciduous trees offer shade in summer when in leaf and let the sunlight through in winter. In which direction are your best views? Are those views the main reason why you bought the site?

And Just How Green Are You?

How important is energy efficiency to you? If you want to achieve passiv haus standards this will implicate many decisions. What materials are you using and what will the thermal mass of your building be? A building with a low-ish thermal mass may be susceptible to overheating in the afternoon if exposed to a westerly sun.

Clever Windows and Shading

Clever use of windows and high specification windows and shading can achieve a great deal? Windows used to be considered the thermal weak point in any passive design. With modern technology this is no longer the case but there are limits and the most efficient windows are the most expensive. Shading can make a great design feature with over hangs and covered patios and inside/outside areas. Shutters too can be used to great effect. We include total blackout shutters in our buildings for shading, comfort, and security.

Intelligent Internal Layout

Apart from shaded patio areas there are plenty of other buffer zones that can be used to protect the chief comfort areas from over heating or over cooling such as the garage, utility room, circulation space, washrooms. The kitchen which emits heat could be at the northerly side of the building where its heat effect is beneficial in the winter and will not exacerbate over heating in the summer. It will depend on your overall mix.

Roof Mounted Solar Energy Capture Panels

If you are mounting solar energy capture panels on your roof what is the optimal angle for them? The answer could affect the entire orientation of your building. Perhaps you are planning a flat roof or a green roof. Can you mount your solar panels on out-buildings or in the garden? All will depend on the energy balance of your building which needs to be planned at the outset.

Architecture which responds to people and to place

If the solution you are considering is modular or you have to have some kind of template design you severely restrict you’re options. Your builder and your architect need to respond to you personally and to the site you have bought or are looking for.

Bio

John Wolfendale is a director of Eco Vida, ecological architects and green building specialists. He graduated in Land Economy from Magdalene Cambridge in 1984, and has an additional first class degree in psychology. He has been a Chartered Surveyor for 23 years and lives with his Spanish wife and family in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. www.EcoVidaInternational.com

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Redefining The Word Comfort in “Comfortable Home”

I used to think a comfortable home meant one with lots of cushions and carpets. Having a comfortable home was a bit like having a comfortable bed. Well, let me tell you my eyes have been opened. Over the last several years since we have been developing our techniques and researching materials in low energy housing this word now has a completely different meaning to me.

A Comfortable Home is a Healthy Home

First of all it means healthy. A comfortable home is a healthy home. I used to think a healthy home was a home with healthy people in it. Now I think of it as one in which the air is fresh and continuously replaced. I wouldn’t dream of building a home now without a mechanical system of extracting stale dirty air from kitchen and bathroom areas and replacing it with fresh clean air filtered of dust and pollen gently propelled into the bedrooms and living areas.

A mechanical heat recovery and ventilation system also allows you to have the perfect humidity too by controlling the rate of replacement. However hot or muggy it is outside, inside you are comfortable. What a bonus!

Healthy means Lots of Natural Light Too

Healthy means lots of natural light too. Studies have proved that salesmen perform better if they are working in natural light rather than artificial light. Natural light is healthy. A comfortable home therefore incorporates lots of large windows and maybe skylights or light chimneys in hidden corners. Windows used to be considered the inevitable weak point in insulating your home. But with significant changes in window technology over the last twenty years which allow light to pass through but not heat (or sound) this is no longer the case. In fact these days you really can have it all.

Guilt Free Air Conditioning

Here’s the thing about standard air conditioning units. They use fossil fuels, which heat up the environment, to cool your home: a vicious cycle. Not clever. And have you ever stood next to the extractor fan unit located outside the space which is being cooled? It’s hot isn’t it? And noisy!

What would you say to an air conditioning system that uses solar power, is not electric, is silent, and cools the whole house not just the air i.e. the floors, the walls and all the surfaces? Well it now exists. How great is that for a hot Mediterranean climate? The hotter it is outside the cooler it can be inside. All the rooms in your home are always at the right temperature regardless of weather or season. If you go on holiday leave it on. It’s free to run. Now that’s what I call comfort.

By the way the same system heats the house in the winter and provides domestic hot water.

Living In Peace

I like to be able to sit in any room in my house in peace and read a book or just watch my thoughts. That peace and quiet is priceless. I do not wish to hear the loo flush upstairs. My ideal comfortable home has superb sound insulation inside and out.

And you know whatever your views on climate change wouldn’t it feel comfortable to know that you are living in balance with your environment? You are generating most of the energy you use, recycling your water and your waste material, using simple low maintenance systems.

I also like to know that maintaining this level of comfort doesn’t costs me much on a monthly basis. That helps me to feel peaceful.

So that’s what a comfortable home means to me. What does it mean to you? Why not get in touch?

Bio

John Wolfendale is a director of Eco Vida, ecological architects and green building specialists. He graduated in Land Economy from Magdalene Cambridge in 1984, and has an additional first class degree in psychology. He has been a Chartered Surveyor for 23 years and lives with his Spanish wife and family in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. www.EcoVidaInternational.com

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How to Cool A Passive House In Spain

Well you’ve got three options. Break the rules and turn on the noisy fossil-fuel-burning electrical air conditioning and heat up the planet; incorporate passive cooling techniques into your design which frankly don’t work; or use a solar powered non electrical system which we install in our homes. Now I can hear you crying “hang-on he would say that wouldn’t he” so before I tell you about our system lets just have a look at the facts.

Cooling a passive house is a completely different problem to heating a passive house. We know the passive house technique works in cooler northern European countries. Seal the building and insulate it so no heat can escape and body heat and heat from cooking and appliances is enough to heat your home. Air quality is maintained with a mechanical ventilation system and heat exchanger (HRV). It can be minus 10 C outside before any artificial heat is needed inside.

What happens if we put the same building on a magic carpet and set it down in Andalusia Spain in August. Well it’s sealed and insulated so initially we are protected from the heat. But, big problem, we have to turn the HRV off because it’s hotter outside than it is inside. Soon we are breathing stale smelly air. And this is the big problem. If it’s hotter outside than you want it to be inside no amount of passive cooling techniques and clever designs are going to help you overcome this problem: stale air. You have no option other than to find a way of cooling the air in your building.

However there are some things you can and should be doing so let’s have a look at them.

Reduce Heat Gains in the Building

• Cook outside – not a bad idea we have a lot of barbeques in Spain. You could use an extractor fan in the kitchen.
• Use energy efficient lighting and natural light.
• People are a major heat source in passive houses so get rid of them (smile…I don’t think so)
• Look again at your domestic appliances, are they low in energy consumption and where are they located.

Design Your Building For A Hot Climate

• Shading : this is a vital part of a design in a hot climate. Shade to the south, obviously, but also to the west because the sun sets to the west and it is low in the sky making shading more difficult. Also the westerly sun is the afternoon sun and the thermal mass of your structure is more likely to have reached capacity. Shading includes overhangs, blinds, shutters and there are plenty of ingenious shutters that deal with the problem.
• Special Glazing: recent years has seen the development of window glass technology although it’s mainly for keeping heat in while still letting light through. You can install solar reflecting glass and solar absorbing glass and reduce your glazing to the south and west. This may compromise your enjoyment of the views and passive heating in winter so a balance needs to be struck.
• Thermal Mass: this is often the excuse for using vast quantities of concrete and is certainly why traditional stone buildings in Spain have such thick walls. Essentially you have bulky walls which absorb all the heat allowing you to stay cool inside. This method is entirely reliant on the bulk cooling down over night.

Make Yourself Feel More Comfortable

• Use cool colours: apparently psychologists propone this as a solution. I’m a psychologist and frankly I have my doubts.
• Move the air with fans.
• Use evaporation Techniques such as fountains and dripping walls which work well in dry climates but less well in humid climates.

Remember none of this is going to work in a hermetically sealed house if it is hotter outside than in because you won’t be able to use your HRV and the air quality inside will deteriorate to a point of being unsustainable.  You will have to open the windows and let all the fresh air, and the heat, in.

So How Do You Do It Then?

We install as standard in our buildings a revolutionary cooling system that uses the power of the sun to cool our buildings. Essentially this patented technology has achieved something which many thought was impossible: a “heat pump” with the unique ability to store energy and convert hot water to cooling and heating without the need for electricity. The same system, when installed, provides domestic hot water and heating in the winter.  We use an under floor distribution system so the very fabric of the house is at the right temperature, not just the air as is the case with electrical chillers and of course its silent and completely free to run.

Bio

John Wolfendale is a director of Eco Vida, ecological architects and green building specialists. He graduated in Land Economy from Magdalene Cambridge in 1984, and has an additional first class degree in psychology. He has been a Chartered Surveyor for 23 years and lives with his Spanish wife and family in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. www.EcoVidaInternational.com

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Hemp Insulation

Hemp is a very fine insulating material. This is a bold statement. So what qualities do you look for in an insulating material and how does hemp compare?

The Cost of Hemp Insulation

I have recently been quoted under €27 per square metre for hemp roof insulation and under €19 per square metre for hemp wall insulation. Cork by comparison was under €39 and  €27 respectively. This excluded transport costs which were clearly negotiable against quantity.

It comes in panels of 1000mm by 500 mm. The roof insulation panels are 200 mm thick and the wall panels are 140 mm thick.

So hemp insulation is a lot cheaper than cork and is generally very reasonably priced.

Thermal Properties of Hemp Insulation

Hemp has excellent thermal properties. To give you a precise idea the table below compares the U value of hemp with some other materials. U-values gauge how well a material allows heat to pass through. The lower the U-value, the greater a product’s resistance to heat flow and the better its insulating value.

Material	U Value – W/mK
Copper (included here to give an idea of the range)	380
Plaster Board	0.180
Dry Straw Bales	0.080 – 0.100
Strawboard	0.098
Woodwool slab	0.082
Sawdust	0.051
Foamed Glass Insulation	0.036 – 0.046
Cork	0.043
Fibre-glass Insulation	0.040
IsoNat hemp/recycled cotton insulation	0.039
Hemp and recycled cotton insulation	0.039
Thermalfleece sheeps wool insulation	0.039
Warmcel 500 wall insulation	0.036
Mineral Wool Insulation	0.032
Rigid polystyrene insulation	0.029 – 0.036
Rigid polyurethane	0.022 – 0.028
Rigid phenolic foam insulation	0.021 – 0.024

The Embodied Energy of Hemp Insulation

This is a measure of the energy used to process and transport the material and will clearly vary on how efficiently the hemp is processed and how far away manufacturing is from the building site.

Hemp can be and is grown across a wide area geographically widely including the UK, France, and Spain. It is a natural material and by comparison to synthetic materials, such as mineral and glass wool, it is probably safe to say it beats them all on the embodied energy measure.

However the whole picture would include a measure of the amount of energy saved by a material throughout the lifetime of its use. Having said that the embodied energy of almost any insulation material is insignificant compared with the energy saved by it over the lifetime of the building.

The Raw Material, Toxicity and Recyclability of Hemp Insulation

Yes, the environment is more than just an energy issue. What could be more environmentally friendly than growing the insulation material free from pesticides and chemicals? There is no toxicity that I am aware of in its manufacture, processing or usage. Hemp is an organic material.

Other Hemp Facts

• One of the earliest plants to be husbanded by man, hemp has been described as having the highest green credentials of any crop. It produces a huge variety of materials (fibre, wood, seeds), has a wide climatic range and a broad scope of uses. It has a high biomass and is an ideal rotation crop. It naturally suppresses weeds and so reduces the need for chemical or other treatments.
• Hemp wood chips can be mixed with lime to make Hempcrete which has a wide range of applications for insulating roof spaces, beneath or between floors, to build walls or as an insulating undercoat.
• The Hemp plant comes from the same family as the Cannabis plant the only difference being the quantity of THC produced.
• Before the industrial revolution hemp was the main source of rope and was in much demand by the world’s navies.
• Hemp is now used in the automotive industry for interior panels where it has proved superior to synthetic materials. It is also used in the manufacture of prestige paper.

Check out the informative Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp

And Finally

As a final thought remember that the single most important factor in any insulating material is that it be installed properly.

Bio

John Wolfendale is a director of Eco Vida, ecological architects and green building specialists. He graduated in Land Economy from Magdalene Cambridge in 1984, and has an additional first class degree in psychology. He has been a Chartered Surveyor for 23 years and lives with his Spanish wife and family in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. www.ecovidainternational.com

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