Updated March 18th 2011
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Event and project update archive Solar thermal progress update March 2011 Spring Old Home/SuperHome open days March 2011 progress update
home the existing house our plans thermal performance mechanical and electrical recycling and freecycling the garden project progress links about us - contact
We are now just a year into our renovation and retrofitting project which we started in January 2010,. The Recycled House is a 1960's ex-Police house in Camber, East Sussex which we are in the process of turning into a sustainable low-energy house. We have learned a lot of lessons, made more than a few mistakes and put a great deal of work into the project, but it is starting to feel as if it's working - and we have been through the hardest winter for a long time. We've included updates on a number of the major green elements of our project on the website.
We were attracted to the house by its good footprint, a great location with the sand dunes and beach to the front and the marshes to the rear, a reasonably large garden and space for a garden studio. The objective of the project is to create a sustainable contemporary house, with as much re-use, recycling and freecycling of materials as possible, using local contractors and suppliers and as little as possible going to landfill. In part our inspiration for this project is the fact that there is a huge amount of existing housing in the UK which is unaffected by government targets for building more efficient new homes, and we wanted to prove that it is possible to create efficient homes from old housing stock - a theme which is now being developed very actively by the Great British Refurb campaign with the World Wildlife Foundation.
When we bought the house it was heated by oil, as there is no mains gas in Camber. We decided to try to minimise the heat needed by insulating it as well as possible and fitting triple glazing throughout, and use only renewable energy sources to heat and power it. These include solar thermal, solar photovoltaic and biomass (a log burner with back boiler).
We started in January 2010, working with Rye based architect Dominic Manning, who we met through the Rother Environmental Group. In March we submitted planning and building control applications and started internal work in the Police Office annex. We hoped originally to have the major building work complete and all the green technology in place by July - at the end of July this was largely achieved, and since we have concentrated on finishing the house, landscaping the garden and building a garden studio/workshop based on a traditional Sussex green oak barn.
We try to update this site regularly, particularly the project progress reports, and welcome emails from anyone who would like to know more about the project, to give us feedback or tell us about projects they are undertaking.
Helen Silverlock and John Kelly
