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 shortly.

Share This

A piece of good news that is of great interest personally and I’m sure of interest to many people planning conversions and other projects, is that the installation of solar thermal & PV panels, combined-heat & power systems, biomass systems and water & ground source heat pumps will no longer require planning permission, so long as there is no negative impact on neighbours or the area. In future these developments will be included as permitted developments under the General Permitted Development Order.

Negative impact is assessed in part by the profile of any panels installed, roof mounted panels must not extend more than 200 millimetres from the roof and ground mounted panels must not be more than four metres above ground level or more than five metres from the boundary of the property. Additionally, equipment should be sited to ‘minimise its effect on the amenity of the area’ and ‘removed as soon as reasonably practicable‘ if no longer used. (Italicised quotes are from the Statutory Instrument, see below for more details).

Wind turbines and air source heat pumps are not included within the current legislation, but will follow.

This came into effect from April 6th 2008.

Good news for me as I’m currently waiting for a response from the local planners asking if I need permission for ‘in-roof’ panels. Having read through the Statutory Instrument I don’t.

Read more >>

Solar power homes get the go-ahead for April

The actual legislation: Statutory Instrument

Share This

Llandeilo has been grabbing headlines recently with talk of launching its own currency under the banner of being the first transition town in Wales. The transition town movement concerns itself with tackling two major challenges, Peak Oil and Climate Change. The approach to tackling these challenges is by broadly applying permaculture principles, considering energy efficiency and methods for local self sufficiency in food, waste disposal and manufacturing. The goals are to reduce the carbon footprint of transition communities and to prepare them to be better disposed to weather any negative effects of a future impacted by reduced availability of oil and oil based products.

The Llandeilo project began in Spring 2007 and has since spawned a number of sub-groups:

* Allotments
* Food and Farming
* Renewable Energy
* Permaculture
* Afallon Teilo - a project to encourage the local production of apples
* ‘Heart and Soul’ - the psychology of Energy Descent
* Diwylliant a Iaith - (Welsh) culture and language

In terms of analogy and comparison, Jonathan Dawson in an article for the New Statesman draws an elegant branch on the family tree of sustainable communities between small transitional communities (ecovillages to use Jonathan’s terminology) and medieval monasteries.

Interesting times and interesting opportunities.

Share This

I have an urge to further extend and heighten these dry stone walls. I’ve always fancied living behind a wall. I think there’s something primal going on here.

If you enjoyed that post, then read these…My Favourite Things ~ ‘Arrow Slits’ on February 3rd, 2008With a project like this it is sometimes easy to allow the […]