Award winning scheme

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Middle Farm, Tallentire, a development of 4 energy efficient houses first blogged in the entry ‘House For Sale' has won an award. Allerdale LABC presented the developer, Jadaal Ltd, with the Built in Quality award in recognition of excellent design and build quality in the Multiple Housing criteria on Thursday 23rd April 2009.

The previous blog entry mentioned that the houses are now for sale and I’m pleased to report they have all now sold which is recognition alone in times like these.

It’s good to be recognised and even better to have good design that uses modern building techniques recognised. To save a little time as I’m such a busy man below is the press release which gives a little more background along with some new photos.

Jadaal Ltd Wins Allerdale LABC Built In Quality Award For Multiple Housing Scheme.
Middle Farm, Tallentire, Cockermouth, Cumbria (27 April 2009) – Allerdale LABC bi-annual Built in Quality award is given to Jadaal Ltd in recognition of the excellent build and design quality of 4 energy efficient timber framed houses. The scheme now goes forward to the Northern regional heats.

The four houses designed by Red Raven Design Ltd (Cockermouth) are built forming a courtyard arrangement adjacent to a Grade II listed property. The traditional Cumbrian aesthetic is contrasted with the airy spacious open plan interiors split over two levels. Despite the traditional appearance the houses are built using a bespoke factory constructed timber frame kit to Red Raven’s design. The SupaWall system by Maple Timber Frame Ltd consists of 190mm of polyurethane insulation easily beating the required insulation levels 3 times over with U-values of only 0.113W/m2K . This level of energy efficiency negates the need for central heating requiring only a heat exchange unit fitted to a whole-house ventilation system to provide all the houses heating needs.

Despite the use of bespoke contemporary design, innovative construction systems and high levels of insulation the scheme was quicker and easier to build than a comparative scheme built traditionally achieving only the minimal statutory energy efficiencies required by law.

The scheme commended by Allerdale LABC as “excellent” in terms of design and build quality sets new standards for all small scale speculative development.

From Computer to Reality

Almost 3 years ago I posted an entry about an unexpected planning approval (Unexpected Planning Approval) - that project is now virtually complete. The timber framed building built using Maple Timber Frame’s Ecopack system was erected and finished by the owner client. All that’s left is a little bit of landscaping and fitting of the correct downpipes and it will look just like my original visualizations!