Design and energy – efficient home
This activity allows you to design your dream energy-efficient home – to make choices about the design of your home at each stage and finally receive a complete "description" of your home and feedback.
Step 1 – you choose your location from these options:
- Chessleton: A seaside location - old fishing village. Quite windswept, and the waves are high enough at the nearby Cowrie Cove for surfing. Plenty of daylight hours, more in summer than winter. The village stands in the shadow of The Crags, huge granite cliffs full of caves. Average rainfall. Situated in a smoke-free zone.
- The Mara: A hot, dry grassland. This area has little rainfall in the summer, but an extended period of heavy rain lasting about 8 weeks in the winter. Otherwise, the sun shines brightly every day. Winds are rare, but welcome when they arrive. Large herds of cattle roam the surrounding grassland.
- Westerburn: Uplands - quite exposed to winds and weather conditions; little natural shelter. Cold but bright for most of the year with long daylight hours. Fast flowing stream runs across the property. Plenty of shale outcrops. Remote area, so mains gas is not available.
- Thornley: Woodland area, planted mainly with Douglas Fir. Sheltered by the trees, so shaded from the sun and protected from the wind. No stream or lake nearby. A lot of fallen wood and tree thinnings available. Old clay pit nearby. Very cold in winter.
- Pickering Hill: Extremely windy, exposed hillside, little shelter as it is situated on a sandstone outcrop with thin soil. Hard frosts and deep snow in winter. Average daylight hours for most of the year. No stream or lake nearby.
Step 2 – choose what you'll use to build your house
Now choose your building materials, taking account of where your house is built. Think about why you are using each material. If it is locally available, there will be less transport needed: remember, transport uses energy and causes pollution. Also think about which materials are suitable for the temperature and weather conditions of your chosen location - will the materials be affected over time by the conditions?
Your choice of energy for heating/lighting your home should also be suitable for the local conditions. Remember: there are no absolutely correct answers, but you should be able to explain your choices.
- Walls: stone, brick, wood, metal, wattle and daub, glass
- Roof: stone, slate, wood, metal, clay tiles, glass
- Windows: single-thickness glass, double-glazed glass in wood frames, double-glazed glass in UPVC frames, double-glazed PVC frames, treble-glazed glass in wood frames, treble-glazed glass in UPVC frames
- Floor (base): stone, concrete
- Floor (upper levels): stone, marble tiles, ceramic tiles, concrete, stone tiles, wooden floorboards, terracotta tiles
- Insulations: cavity insulation, fibreglass loft insulation, both cavity and loft insulation, none
- Heating: coal central heating, gas central heating, oil central heating, electric central heating, steam under-floor heating (made by burning wood to boil water), wood-burning stoves, electric fires, coal fires, gas fires, nothing
- Lighting: electricity from an oil power station, electricity from a coal power station, electricity from a nuclear power station, electricity from a gas power stations, electricity generated by a wind turbine, electricity generated by hydro-electric power, electricity generated by wind power, solar energy
