I recently took part in Green Conversations, a retrofitting talk for the St John’s Society a conservation area in Deptford. (If you would like one for your club, society or workplace in London drop me a line alex@ecoalex.com)
It was a good evening and gave me a chance to set up the retrofit dolls house for the first time this year (I know, it’s been a busy year). The dolls house is something I made for a show last year.
I have added external wall insulation with brick slips at the sides and internal wall insulation at the front. This aims to show what you might achieve in a conservation area whilst preserving the historical significance of your property, ideal for the St John’s area. The walls are where you lose the most heat from your property in a solid wall house so dealing with them is very important. In a heritage building the front of the house is likely to have most of the heritage features which you want to preserve, the back and the sides tend to have less interesting features and more soil pipes, downpipes etc. This means you are more likely to be able to use external insulation at the side and back (moving the downpipes etc), you can even take this opportunity to tidy up ugly brickwork, re render a property or change the appearance entirely with timber cladding etc. Then at the front you add carefully detailed internal wall insulation, you can recreate any special cornicing, picture rails or skirting on top of this. Always make sure your internal wall insulation is moisture open and carefully detailed by an expert in insulation.
As you can see above it has a tiny green roof on top. I make this up as part of the presentation, showing all the layers that go into making one. It’s quite a small roof so I only use sedums on it as not much else will grow in this tiny bit of soil that you can fit on the dolls house roof. In this photo you can see some cardboard solar panels I made to show you can combine solar panels and green roofs (it even makes the panels more effective).
Since this photo my son did a workshop at Next day solar where he learned about electricity and solar panels and how to connect them up. Afterwards there was an opportunity to buy some of their mini solar panels so I bought some to take home and we will be making some mini solar panels for the dolls house next.
I was speaking alongside Jacqueline Finn who works with FMTL and with Ecoalex, she talked more about specific insulation requirements and Zana Dean of Tread Studios. The event was organised by St John’s Society and South East London Community Energy.
If you would like me to do a talk for your club, society or workplace in London drop me a line alex@ecoalex.com
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