Last year I noticed that there was a colony of bees living in the base of a red wood tree near my garden gate. As wasn’t too bothered about them at the time as the place was more or less a building site.

One of the bees

Then, a couple of weeks ago my father was stung by one of them as he passed and yesterday as I was pottering around, there was a great hum and swarming of the bees that started around 2:45pm and lasted for 20 minutes or so after which they seemed to have spread-out and became very active around the locality of the hive. I’d guess it was a fair size colony as they made an impressive noise.

Home, sweet (bee) home!

I haven’t got a problem with them (my father can take a sting or two!) but there are now a number of small children living in the area that could stumble across the hive and who knows what could happen.

So I’d like to ask if anyone knows what should I do to remove any risk? I could fence around the tree which will stop anyone getting at the hive itself, but then there’s still this afternoon swarming to contend with and a fence is not really going to protect anyone from a determined set of bees.

The bees (those small dots) ‘swarming’

I don’t really want to kill them off, but are there any other options….?

So far in this series of my favourite things at the barn I’ve focussed on original features, this is the first of the new features we’ve introduced during the conversion.

We chose these oak beams instead of steels to support the first floor for a couple of reasons. From a ‘healthy house’ perspective we minimised the use of metal in the building and aesthetically the oak beams help maintain an attractive link to the buildings history.

There are two beams in the main room of the barn – each weighing in at around 3/4 of a tonne. It will be nice to see them sanded and finished as they are currently water stained and blackened, but still attractive to the eye.

I’m a little late in posting this as it was taken a couple of months ago, but I think it’s worth adding as it gives a feeling of the internal space on the first floor as it starts to take shape.

The Code for Sustainable Homes is an essential read for anyone considering a sustainable home building project. In its own words:

The Code for Sustainable Homes has been introduced to drive a step-change
in sustainable home building practice. It is a standard for key elements of
design and construction which affect the sustainability of a new home.

It is under-pined by heavy-weight research having being built upon the Building Research Establishment’s (BRE) EcoHomes System.

How does the code work?

The code seeks to achieve improvements to levels of sustainability in home building through the establishment of minimum standards for energy and water efficiency, the provision of a simple points based rating system for enumerating levels of sustainability and extending the scope of the code into areas such as composting and ‘lifetime’ issues of the home such as accessibility and adaptability.

The rating system allows for the allocation of an overall one to six stars to communicate the sustainability level of a home. The overall score is built up from sub-scores in nine broad design categories, these are:

• Energy/CO2
• Water
• Materials
• Surface water run-off
• Waste
• Pollution
• Health and well-being
• Management
• Ecology

Energy/CO2 & Water have minimum levels that must be achieved at each of the six levels of the code. Materials, Surface water run-off & Waste have a minimum level that must be attained to allow entry into the code at all.

Briefly, assessment of a number of issues defined by the code within each category allows the allocation of a number of points and from these points the overall star rating is derived. For example, in the Energy/CO2 category points are scored through taking measures such as utilising renewable or low carbon energy sources and also through the provision of bicycle storage or a home office.

The code has high hopes for itself, aiming to provide environmental benefits with a positive impact on climate change and a reduction in the environmental impact of building. Additionally, benefit to builders by providing a flexible mark of quality and greater direction in terms of future regulations and to home-owners through lower running costs, improved comfort & satisfaction and generally more pleasant and healthier places to live.

Why should I use them?

Whilst providing a potential future gold standard for sustainable building (only time, implementation and experience will confirm or reject that statement), the code is useful at the design stage for both professionals and non-professionals in providing a design template and useful design patterns. The categories and issues of The Code for Sustainable Homes can be used in the same way as I’ve used design patterns , to help focus on detail and polish the overall design.

You should also note that all new homes, except those where ‘the initial notice, full plans or Building Notice have been received by the relevant Local Authority Building Control body prior to 1st May 2008′ will have to be rated against the code.

The term BREEAM is one that I’ve come across in various contexts over the course of this project and thought I’d better find out what it means…

BREEAM is a widely used environmental assessment method for buildings. The assessments are carried out by qualified practitioners. For many types of development, assessments are a prerequisite.

Through application of the method buildings are assessed against a set of criteria and given an overall score which will fall within a banding, this then provides a rating of: PASS, GOOD, VERY GOOD or EXCELLENT. Certain minimum standards are set – for example, the Welsh Development Agency requires that all buildings constructed on land sold by them must achieve a minimum VERY GOOD rating.

The method is applicable to most types of building, with bespoke versions of the method available for large non-standard buildings like prisons and schools & for non U.K. buildings etc.

Pre-assessment estimators are available for you to see the depths to which the assessment goes. Probably of most relevance for us is the Ecohomes pre-assessment estimator. From this you can see that a wide range of criteria are used to assess the building – from CO2 emissions to sound insulation and the amounts of daylight.

Note that …

In April 2007 the Code for Sustainable Homes replaced Ecohomes for the assessment of new housing in England.

More on the Code for Sustainable Homes here.