BEDZED tour

Visited BedZed on Wednesday - UK's largest zero-carbon village, over 100 homes. See online photo album.

Key points:

Construction:

• brick facade, 300mm internal insulated gap, concrete internal walls - large well insulated thermal mass
• uncovered painted slabs soffit for internal ceilings - electrical wiring run through chunky central conduit - looks OK, functional


• internal doors have gap around 3mm at base to allow air to circulate
• have green roofs which moderate the water run-off (and subsequent storage and re-use) according to the SUDS system (?)

Wind Cowls

• the large distinctive wind cowls on roof are there for air exchange, they provide 3x room air changes per hour and have a heat exchanger in the unit to warm to cool external air before it circulates back inside. Code L-rated
• they run on toyota (? suzuki) bearings and are relatively low-maintenance
• close-up photos - they are made using ductwork/sheet metal fabrication techniques
• it's called passive stack ventilation

Waste Water treatment

• have full on-site black water treatment. To meet regulations it is legal as long as you have your own water treatment company, so theirs is called Albion Water, and they treat it all on site using amongst others a reed-bed system - 6 large tubs - and also they are trialing another black water treatment plant fully self-sufficient - 3 year trial first in the world so still to be advised onthis.

Misc

solar panels gain enough electricity for home use plus around 40 electric cars

• overall construction cost around 16-17% higher than 'normal' house - cost overruns (?) - something abotu double piping etc so not necessarily about process


• used double-glazed Danish windows but now there are Rational Windows available in UK which do the trick

Heating

• re heating - they had a wood-chip fuelled generator (using tree pruning offcuts) but it was not permitted to run 24hrs due to noise pollution so it had to be shut at night so it tarred up and required too much maintenance so has been shut down. Most heating is solar passive.
• FYI, a dog generates around 15W of heat every hour, a cat around 10W, a person sitting around 100W and a person moving around 250W
  
  
  
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