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Planning granted for 'outstanding' straw bale design |
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13 Mar 2012, 9:46 PM
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Forget bricks and mortar, Rob and Katie Field plan to build their new home out of straw bales. - The couple have been given permission to construct a three-bedroom house in Wymondham, near Melton, using straw harvested from a 100-acre wheat farm.
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The eco-friendly home will have a wall-less Dutch barn as its core, straw bales for the 18in-thick walls, floor to ceiling windows, solar panels and a bio-mass boiler. It will be carbon neutral, meaning the house will generate as much energy as it consumes, and is one of the first homes of its type in the region.
Dr Field, 46, a conservation scientist with the RSPB, said: "We've been working on the plan for about four years and we're going to be doing a lot of the building work ourselves at holidays and weekends, so I'm not sure when it's going to be ready – or how much it will cost – but the sooner the better."
The couple are currently living in Stonesby, but their new home will be built on Strawberry Farm, in Melton Road, in the village, which is owned by Mrs Field's father, Christopher Glenn.
The Dutch barn at a neighbouring farm will be dismantled and used as the free-standing base for the house.
Dr Field added: "We intend to use second-hand and reclaimed materials where possible and by-products such as straw for the walls. The straw will be both structural and insulating and the walls will be covered in lime mortar which sticks to the rough surface of the bales. We will use heat from the sun coming through the floor to ceiling windows to warm the house, using reclaimed heat-absorbing stone or brick."
The house will have solar panels to produce electricity, with excess production going back into the National Grid, and also an eco-friendly bio-mass boiler, which will burn wood harvested from the farm instead of a boiler that relies on fossil fuels.
Melton Borough Council's development committee gave permission for the building work to go ahead last week.
Richard Cooper, director of the HSSP Architects of Melton, which designed the scheme, said: "We are delighted Melton Borough Council had the foresight to approve this – it will show energy efficient development can be achieved on a particularly tight budget – and this in particular has gained a great deal of interest."
The council's development committee backed the scheme under planning guidelines which allow "for the very occasional granting of truly outstanding and ground-breaking design" despite it being outside normal planning rules.
Credits:: Leicester Mercury
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| Positive review of this story |
john holland  |
16 Oct 2012, 10:23 AM |
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bio mass boilders well it a good idea, what is the differance of using ground heart pump, as their is no co2 used, in getting the wood to biomass boiler or getting it ready to burn in the boilder. As bio mass boilders become more and more into light, as have log burnes the price of fuel goes up, thus going back to proplem cost of fuel?
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