Eco Home Ideas

For the THIRD instalment in Oliver Heath’s eco-refurb diary read on…

If refurbishing a home wasn’t complicated enough we now have to choose our materials with extreme care and attention. You could see this as a limitation but for me it’s an opportunity to create a style that embodies the philosophies of sustainability.

Luckily there are ever more interesting materials to choose from as I found out when designing the Eco home exhibition at the Geffrye Museum in East London. It struck me that when designing eco homes there are masculine and feminine sides to consider. The “masculine” focuses on the technical aspects involved in making the home more efficient and practical things like new boilers, water-efficient toilets and A-rated appliances. By contrast the “feminine” element is about creating a beautiful and nurturing home. Think fabrics, furniture and dressings.

You could see this as the eternal struggle between form and function - and to create a home that is both efficient and a great place to live these two need to find a balance. Kitchen work surfaces and wall paints are both good examples of materials where form and function come together to create the perfect solution: they are durable and good-looking.

As a general rule materials should be:

·         Technology-led, allowing a low-energy (and low-carbon) lifestyle, being either produced with low levels of energy or helping to cut energy use in the home, e.g. insulation

·         From sustainable renewable sources. Think wood, wool, and cork

·         Have low toxin levels. Why would we knowingly put poisons into our family homes?

·         Made from recycled or recyclable materials

And of course any materials on show should be beautiful, allowing us to create exciting visual and textural contrasts.

With these thoughts in mind I have been working on a palette of materials with good environmental and eco chic style credentials. Here’s a selection of some of the exciting materials I’ve chosen for my eco refurb:

·         Sweet chestnut – Locally sourced in Sussex, it comes in short strips that are beautifully hand-jointed together. We are cladding a section of the front façade in long vertical lengths of the material (about 15cm wide). In time this material weathers to a soft silver sheen and requires no additional protective coatings making it very low maintenance. www.in-wood.co.uk

·         Insulative render - To supplement the cavity wall insulation I’m wrapping the house in an innovative lightweight white render coat improving the u-value of its fabric, helping to keep it cosy and warm. www.thermilate.com

·         FSC floors - It’s important that my floors have come from a sustainable
source and of course that they look great. These 22cm-wide engineered oak boards (perfect for under-floor heating) are wire-brushed then coated in a white oil and a grey finishing coat to bring out the oak’s grain and create a textured matt finish. I went to visit Reeve Flooring’s factory recently and was really impressed with their hand-finishing skills and relatively low costs. www.reeveflooring.com

·         Glass stone work surfaces - Known as Resilica, they are made from 85% crushed recycled glass in a solvent-free resin. We’ve specified a mixture of blue- and turquoise-coloured glass with small mirrored flecks to give it a jewel-like
sparkle. I love Eight Inches work and their surfaces (made locally) are just incredible. www.eightinch.co.uk

·         Natural paints – Earthborn’s claypaints are a breath of fresh air in the home, as they contain no volatile organic compounds- the solvent used in conventional paints that give them that freshly painted smell but which can also contribute to breathing difficulties. Earthborn use natural oils as solvents. This allows walls to breathe and soak in excess moisture, preventing damp and mould. www.earthbornpaints.co.uk

·         Natural slate tiles - Our bathroom floor will have natural slate tiles cut from UK quarries, which require no firing and minimal levels of transport compared to European, South American or Far Eastern versions. The silver green tiles we’re specifying have a wonderful grain and texture to them adding real character to our bathroom. www.kirkstone.com

There’s no denying that it takes more time to put together a comprehensive selection of sustainable materials. But if it’s an Eco home you’re after, the decision-making process should follow right through from the exterior fabric of your home down to the smallest details. And if chosen with care it means your home can be both efficient and beautiful, the ultimate eco chic goal.

Find out more at www.oliverheath.com

For the second instalment in Oliver Heath’s eco-refurb diary read on…

How do you start an eco refurb? As you mean to continue of course: with lofty environmental intentions. In my case that means stripping out my home’s old fixtures and putting in steel joists and columns to improve its efficiency and circulation, and future proof it (more on that later).

For me this is the most nerve-wracking part of the build. As we take away walls and expose old structure I just pray we won’t find anything drastic, like damp, rot, vermin or major structural defects covered up by cowboy builders. That said it’s also the most exciting time as the true potential of the space reveals itself and drawing-board dreams become reality. My heart is in my mouth every time the contractors call, thank God we factored in contingency costs!

So just how are the structural changes going to make this house more eco?

Our integral garage wastes valuable space (do we really need it to be full of junk boxes and bikes?), it also allows cold air right into the heart of our home! We’re planning to convert it into the kitchen and open it up to the living room, updating the layout and making it work for today’s way of living - creating a mix of “family spaces” that allow us to relax, eat, and play both together and alone. The sliding pocket door that is to be fitted between the living room and lounge makes the space open yet flexible.

Incorporating new structure also allows us to open up the back of the house, removing the wasteful old patio doors (their ugly chunky uPVC frames and mullions block half the opening space) and increasing the natural light flowing in through the new slim profile doors by over 200%. Just think how much less artificial light we will need to use every day. It will also make our connection with the garden/allotment stronger.

Thinking in the long-term, adding steel joists will future proof the house – allowing us greater flexibility as my two children get older by converting the attic space. This will add an extra 5 to 10 years on our use of the house without disrupting the ground floor living-space during the works.

Before anything happens there’s going to be a major clean-out of unwanted items. But where should all that rubble and those old kitchen cabinets go? Pouring them into a hole in the ground is a dead end for us all. Anything usable such as furniture, boxes of junk, old mirrors and shelves can go straight to the charity shop. My favorite is Emmaus (www.emmaus.org.uk). What’s more they’ll come and pick it up. You can also try www.uk.freecycle.org.

Scrap timber will be picked up by the Brighton and Hove Wood Recycling project, a great place that diverts thousands of tones of timber from landfill. We’ll be visiting them again later on in the build to give our somewhat bland home a little character. Unusable timber will be chipped and reused in gardens - www.woodrecycling.org.uk. Reusable builders materials, such as the once glorious 60’s pink bathroom suite, exterior wall hung tiles, uPVC doors and windows, are all off to Tiger Reusit www.reuseitdontloseit.co.uk.There’s always someone out there who wants this reusable, vintage stuff (especially in retro kitsch-loving Brighton).

Eventually my worst fears are realized and that dreaded phone call comes from the builders. It’s the only thing we can’t recycle; 12.5 m sq of Brown Amosite Asbestos on the garage ceiling which will cost £900 to remove. This is one of the costlier downsides of a 60s house, and one I’m not going to go near myself-time to call the experts and spend some of that contingency cash!

Ecocentric co-founder and TV designer Oliver Heath has just started the ultimate eco refurb of his 1960s Brighton home. He will be blogging about it here offering tips and advice, with links to helpful resources and suppliers. Here is the first instalment, which appeared in the  Guardian’s Green Living blog on Monday 18th Jan. Come back for the second instalment which will go live on Monday next week.

TV interior designer Oliver Heath wants to transform his ugly, 1960s four-bedroom house in Brighton into an energy efficient, nurturing home

Oliver Heath’s house. A golden ‘eco’ opportunity? Photograph: Heath Design Ltd

It’s taken some time to realise that I don’t like to make things easy for myself - but I do like to make things right. A year ago we moved into a detached 1960s four-bedroom house in Brighton. Hardly the designer home one might expect for a man who enthuses about good sustainable design on TV, but it took a year and a half to find this ugly house on a nice streetand I really believe this 1960s-style house offers us a golden eco-friendly opportunity.

On the plus side it’s something of a Tardis. Small on the outside but roomy inside, its large windows make it lovely and light, and it has a generous plot size in a great central Brighton location.

On the downside, it’s both characterless and woefully energy inefficient; lacking in roof, wall and floor insulation, and filled with outdated wasteful boilers, appliances, taps and toilets.

But it could very easily become the house of the future: efficient to run and low in CO2 emissions, but also nurturing, and personal – a good home to live in and a great place to bring up my children.

So how and where are we going to start? I’ve tried to make things as simple as possible and created practical environmental strategies for each issue that will affect the efficiency of our home: insulation, heating and ventilation, water and electricity. Looked at holistically, these strategies need to work independently but also in tandem. One example is that activities in the home will help both heat and ventilate the home over the course of the day, thanks to a Vaillant heat recovery unit which I will install and will take warm moist air from bathrooms and the kitchen to warm the other rooms in the house. I’m also excited about the low-energy, dimmable LED lighting systems, low-flow water appliances by Vitra, and super-efficient doors and windows by Velfac.

A good home needs to be more than just practical and efficient; it also needs to be a nurturing space to ensure that is a safe and fun place to live. Much of this comes down to the choice of materials used on the surfaces, such as flooring, paints, wallpaper and fabrics. But making good eco-friendly choices in these areas is going to be more difficult, as environmental credentials are harder to measure and quantify.

Over the last few years I have a developed a design language I call “urban eco-chic”, one that expresses a sustainable style; it is both a practical and aesthetic approach. The cornerstones of this style dictate that rooms are a blend of the technological (for efficiency), the natural (for well being and reduced toxins) and the vintage (to express character and personality). This style is approached in different ways in each separate room. A kitchen will need to be more efficient, for example, while a bedroom will want to be more nurturing and personal.

I can’t wait to create what I hope will be a truly unique, warm, and comfortable home. But right now, the builders are calling with endless questions, so it’s back to site for me. Over the coming months I will be blogging about my refurb - please do follow me, share your advice and let me know how you think I’m doing.

This article is published as it appeared in the Guardian’s Green Living blog on Monday 18th Jan

Every year more than 10 million unbroken pieces of furniture are thrown out of British homes and sent to landfill. The environmental impact is quite dramatic. “For every one tonne of furniture or electrical appliance that is thrown away,” explains Helen Middleton of the Furniture Re-Use Network, “you’re talking about five to fifteen tonnes of carbon worth attached to that material…And when you’re talking about climate change it’s the carbon, not just the landfill issue, that we should be talking about.”

So, what can be done? You can follow in the footsteps of TV journalist Jonathan  Maitland who recently took on the challenge of furnishing a house in one week, using exclusively used, reclaimed or free furniture. And all this for a budget of £500.

Eco interior designer Oliver Heath was called in to help, as were some unversity design students. Instead of traipsing round the usual furniture megastores, the team visited reclaim yards, logged on to online Freebie network Freecycle and used various community repaint and furniture re-use schemes to help them in the task.

It was an eye-opening experience. “Over the past few weeks I have spent more time than I care to admit at scrap and recycle yards across east london-where the waste mountains are just shocking,” says Oliver Heath

The programme was a chance to show viewers that with a little imagination and creativity, the items that others throw away can be brought together to create a stylish and contemporary home.”

How did they approach the task? “We unified house and furniture by painting everything  white (luckily the most common paint colour found in local community collection schemes!) and then added bursts of colour and pattern through vintage fabrics and  wallpaper offcuts. As a result the house has a very funky patchwork look, which also makes it feel fun and relaxed.”

The final result was miles away from the “uniquitous flat-pack Scandinavian” look prevalent in so many homes across the country. “After all , we were using pieces largely produced in the 1960s so UK manufacturing still had British homes (dimensions and culture) in mind,” says Heath.

Watch the programme on ITV1 on 29th November at 8pm to find out more.

Tonight, ITV1, 29th November at 8pm

TV designer Oliver Heath went to brand new eco hotel, The Scarlet, in Cornwall for a meeting last week and sent us back these photos. It was a blowy, rainy and windy day but you can still get the idea! We’re talking serious luxury retreat with amazing sea views and a strong environmental ethos. Its 37 rooms all have a sea view and a personal terrace or garden, the food in the restaurant is created by Michelin star-winning local chef Ben Tunnicliffe and there is a beautiful spa and a reed-filtered chlorine-free pool. Other eco features include grey- and rain-water harvesting, a biomass boiler, insulation and much more… We can’t wait to visit ourselves.

To help you count down to Christmas in chocaholic style, we have some fabulous Dark ChocolateAdvent Calendars to give away courtesy of fairtrade chocolate maker Divine. The first 100 customers to make an order worth over £50 will receive a free choc-filled calendar. So what are you waiting for? Log on to www.ecocentric.co.uk and start making those Christmas orders you keep putting off!

The Wattson is an energy monitor with a difference - it glows different colours to tell you how much you are consuming (blue for low energy usage, purple for average energy use and bright red to signal that your energy output is starting to skyrocket!) An online survey of customers who bought the gadget shows that they save an average of 20% on their energy bills once they install it. That’s great news for them, for you, and for the climate. Now, the company that makes the Wattson has launched a campaign to help you use 20% less energy in 2010. Sign up to it at www.diykyoto.com/20ten.

If you thought wallpaper was boring, you’d be wrong! This photo shoot in the most recent issue of Sublime Magazine (featuring our ‘Burlesque’ wallpaper by Dupenny) proves that it can not only be beautiful but also sexy and sophisticated. This 100% British hand screen-printed black-on-white wallpaper is bold and dramatic and perfect for a feature wall.

As part of its Eco Home exhibition, London’s Geffrye Museum is hosting an exciting and timely debate on eco homes on Thursday 12th November. The evening will explore issues around making our homes greener. Panellists include our very own Oliver Heath (designer, writer and TV producer), Sean Allam (head of product sourcing at John Lewis), Tom Savigar (from The Future Laboratory, which recently wrote a report looking at the future of sustainable living) and Russell Smith (managing director of Parity Projects, a company that aims to improve the performance and environmental impact of our homes). The debate will be chaired by Alex Goddard of the Geffrye Museum, co-curator of Eco Home.
Tickets cost £7.00 and include a glass of wine. Please book in advance: contact the Bookings and Information Officer at the Geffrye on 020 7739 9893 or bookings@geffrye-museum.org.uk.

Very exciting Divine Fair Trade chocolate giveaway news coming soon…

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