Open Days September 2010	back to archive

The days, organized by the Sustainable Energy Academy and the National Energy Foundation and part of Heritage Open Days, were a great success – almost 70 visitors in total over the 4 days, this was at the limit of what we could deal with, although we had a little help on Thursday and Friday most of the time it was just the two of us.  On Thursday Mike Pepler helped, visiting as a personal friend (he originally suggested we should apply to join the Superhome Network) and also in a professional capacity making the first official visit by Ashden to a Superhome since the award was made. He has posted a report on the Ashden Awards blog.

We had decided not to ask for bookings, and to spend as much time as possible dealing with questions and specific areas of interest, so quite a few visitors were with us for more than an hour.  Overall exhausting but great fun and very rewarding – we had lots of good feedback about what we are doing, from an aesthetic point of view as well as eco aspects.  Meridian TV did some filming for a feature on eco houses, but local media interest was disappointing. The key aspects visitors were interested in were the solar PV and solar thermal systems (particularly the Feed In Tariff), the thermal store, triple glazing, insulation materials and the log burner/back boiler.		Some quotes from feedback forms filled in by visitors: "Fantastic example, very inspirational . . highly useful feedback on local suppliers” "Fascinating, informative . . really good way of seeing sustainability in action" "Warm welcome . . fantastic info . . inspired to push on with own project" "Very good engineering - good solution to problem of adapting existing building" "Great to see environmental and recycling things in the flesh" "Interesting talking ideas we have had with people who have done it" "Fantastic calm house" "Great that this transformation of an older inefficient home can be included in the Heritage Open Days scheme - creating a 'new heritage'!"