House Planning Help Podcast

Mark Brinkley, author of The Housebuilder's Bible, discusses the differences between self build practices in the UK and Germany, exploring levels of self build, house building models, impact on communities, and role of councils and land ownership.

London's Ecobuild has just concluded for another year and Ben Adam-Smith shares his experience of the event. In this episode he chats to four people he met there - Janet Cotterell from Passivhaus Homes, Jon Bootland from the Passivhaus Trust, Jo Gooding from the UK Cohousing Network and Robert Stern from Litmus Films.

Justin Broadbent from isoenergy explains what a ground source heat pump is and how it could be used as a solution to make a period property energy efficient.

What's more important - preserving heritage architecture or retrofitting it to high energy efficiency? In our first forum on a Google+ Hangout we discuss some of the issues. The Panel Writer and blogger Roger Hunt (who appeared in our 10th podcast) Writer and Passivhaus consultant Adam Dadeby from Passivhaus Homes (who appeared in our 5th podcast) Homeowner Ross Atkin (who has recently retrofitted his Victorian house)

Ben Adam-Smith shares an idea he has about using the Internet to communicate the need for incremental lifestyle change as an action to combat climate change. This one-off episode focusses on how you could use content marketing to get your message across. Cesar Abeid from The Construction Industry Podcast is Ben's guest and helps explain how content marketing works.

Bill Butcher from Green Building Store shares his approach to creating a low energy barn conversion by building a box within a box. Stirley Community Farm will meet the EnerPHit standard.

Jason and Lucy Reeve share their preparation for commissioning a new-build home. They discuss the decision to build instead of renovating, working with an architect, and incorporating new ideas into the design. They talk about effectively communicating with planners and conducting thorough research. They emphasize the importance of having an open mind during the design process and using a scrapbook to convey preferences. The speaker also shares humorous experiences with planning permission and discusses their environmental activism and content marketing efforts.

Dr Derek Taylor from Altechnica weighs up the pros and cons of various renewable energy sources and shares his thoughts on whether you should be generating at home. He also talks about his role in creating one of the UK's most energy-efficient homes.

Dr Brenda Boardman, an expert on the world's energy situation and climate change, discusses the growing problem of fuel poverty. She gives practical advice on building or renovating a property with a focus on reducing energy demand in homes. The podcast explores achieving zero carbon emissions through super efficient homes, energy-efficient buildings through retrofitting or new builds, the importance of political activism for energy and the environment, and the significance of energy efficiency in modern architecture.

Roger Hunt explains how to make a period property energy efficient without damaging the building or creating problems for yourself in the future. Also House Planning Help gets its first guest blogger, Paul Mallion from Conker Conservation.