It was time to think about decoration and we did not want our sustainable journey to stop here. I looked into sustainable paint brands and it seems there are a number of considerations. First of all what ingredients go into the paint? Do they include lots of harmful VOCs? (volatile organic compounds).  Ingredients like vinyl resins, synthetic dyes, petrochemicals derived from oil, acrylics, formaldehyde, and ammonia can contribute to health issues (particularly for anyone who’s already living with asthma or eczema). However, the effects of these ingredients are hotly debated. Some companies claim that as they can be found in natural sources, they aren’t inherently bad, but other companies disagree.  How are they manufactured? What about the packaging? Dulux also had a range of paints that used recycled paints, and even paint that absorbed toxins from the atmosphere (see https://www.airlite.com/en/). Some info here about the sustainability of some major brands: https://www.sustainableki

  Steve from the Green Building Store came along to commission our MVHR system. He said it all looked good and he was happy with the installation we had carried out. Using a anemometer he measured the flow of air from each value and balanced it accordingly. He then talked us through the settings on the MVHR machine (video above). It was important not to set the automatic bypass temperature too low as we could have a situation where the heat is being lost via the summer bypass at the same time as the underfloor heating is on. The bypass temperature is an average over the whole house. We have the underfloor heating thermostats set at 21 degrees C, and the bypass temp at 23 degrees C. We will see how it goes. The bypass doesnt stop until the temperature goes down a whole degree otherwise you would have it opening and closing constantly. The air in the house feels to fresh. We are hopeful that the fresh, filtered air will make life easier for our family members who suffer with asthma. The

 With an upside down house, one thing we needed to solve was sound insulation between the upstairs and downstairs. We didn't want people asleep in bedrooms to be disturbed by anyone upstairs either late at night or early in the morning. We consulted Encon insulation in Newmarket and they put us in touch with a specialist who recommended the Isomass acoustic proofing system whereby the bedroom ceilings are 'decoupled' from the joists above by a series of bars and blocs.  " Isocheck Isoblock & Isobar is a high performing sound reduction system designed to offer a more robust alternative to a standard resilient bar with similar low profile (space saving) features.  The Isocheck Isoblock and Isobar system comprises a vibration absorbing steel channel which is secured to studs and joists with isolation blocks.  Attaching the isolation block to ceiling joists, timber and metal studs simply and easily secures the Isobar furring channel and decouples the gypsum board from

 We found the solar panel company via a scheme run by Cambridgeshire County Council: Solar Together. The install date finally came round. The company, Greenscape Energy, arranged the scaffolding prior to the day. The system we agreed on: 15 QCell 340W panels, 5.1 KW system with 7.2KW pylon batteries. Solis Inverter. Directly south facing, 20 degree incline.  So far we are producing more electric than we are using but its early days and heating isn’t on yet!  The illustration estimates a 10 year return on investment. So harder decision to make than the ASHP which is a 5 year return. And ASHP decision was easier as we needed something in place for lack of any boiler and didn’t want to replace the old oil boiler with a new one. I think the solar panels go well with the ASHP and make sense. The Solis phone app is great. It hard not to look at it all the time! It tells you how much you are generating at any one time (roughly 5 minute delay from real time), how much is going to or from the

  I assumed that with our new bath purchase we would also need taps. But on further research I discovered something I had never heard of before... tapless baths! So we pushed the boat out (so to speak!) and purchase a Mira bath and shower valve complete with all the bits we needed (https://www.mirashowers.co.uk/showers/digital-showers/mira-mode-shower-bath-fill-valve-only-pumped-for-gravity/) So we installed the valve under the stairs with copper pipe and waste laid under the screed (prior to screeding). We have an app on our phones to run bath to our preset temperature and duration (bluetooth connection) or a button the wall. We were very certain we didn't want any wifi connected contraptions in our home that were reliant on the internet but we agreed that this would be acceptable and there was a wall option too. It is a real luxury knowing your bath is filled to correct temperature and no need to watch it fill either. And no taps to clean or descale!  We will fit the shower at a

Now that the upstairs we liveable, it was time to start on the downstairs. First we had to remove the remaining screed from the back of the house. Then lay insulation. We put 125mm of insulation in the front rooms to bring it to roughly the same height as the back. Next we had to put down a later of polythene and a foam expansion strip around the outside to allow for the screed to expand when heated by the underfloor pipes. Then we lay the 16mm Thermrite (pex-al-pex) underfloor heating pipes and clipped down onto the insulation. We had 7 zones in total. The one big mistake we made was not too pressurise the system. We were told we only needed to fill the pipes with water. This is not correct, its important to pressurise the system up to about 6 bar and then let it drop and sit at 1.5 bar, otherwise the screed will crack. Because we didn't do this we had to cancel the screed delivery and go back into the queue. It meant that we had to move out for a month as we couldn't live in