Leicestershire new Passivhaus self-build update
- MWArchitectural
- Jan 30
- 2 min read
It's been a little while since we visited the site of one our favourite projects to check in with how things were going. These photos are from last year: October 2024. The site has laid still for a little while as the timber frame design has been completed, ready for its installation in the coming Spring. We're hoping to visit again in the coming weeks to provide more comparison shots before the steelwork (signed off earlier this week) is installed.
Text from the last update:
A really exciting couple of weeks for us as we've seen a load more foamed glass go in to the the spaces which will form our sub-floor and the slab has been poured for the garage space! A lot of unseen stuff has happened recently too including running the feed for the incoming water and getting ready to install the foul drainage - we've had to resort to a pumped tank system with a different route than originally intended due to the height of the mains and the associated installation costs.
This entire system revolves around the saving of as much concrete as possible to reduce our carbon footprint but some of it is unavoidable. One of the key ambitions was to have a garage that can be used to work on cars and so we needed this space to eventually take the loadings that go with a four-post car lift and various engine paraphernalia, hence the slab. The rest of the interior space will have a thinner screed running over the foamed glass, to ensure that we can have underfloor heating throughout. We've got a light-weight wet system running on the first floor though to again, reduce the amount of cement we're using.
You can see the sections of formwork along the walls where we're getting ready to place the steel columns. The next steps are to insulate the outside of all of the walls with the foamed glass and then also put the new road junction into place. Once that's done, the site will fall silent for a bit while we wait out the worst of the winter!
