Sheepridge Passivhaus: Our In-house Construction Team’s Final Project
For fifteen years, Green Building Store has played a pioneering role in the story of Passivhaus building in the UK. From building the first UK traditional construction Passivhaus at Denby Dale to helping set up the Passivhaus Trust, we have been integral in bringing Passivhaus to our shores and advancing it even further.
We launched our Passivhaus services in 2009, and in that time, through the projects we have built, we have used our in-house construction team’s research and development to better understand the first principles of Passivhaus building.
In doing so, we have used this knowledge to help align our business, its services, and its products so that we’ve been able to bring the benefits of ultra-low energy efficient and Passivhaus building to the UK market.
Our in-house construction team, led by our founding director Bill Butcher has revolutionised Passivhaus thinking here in the UK and has shared its skills and knowledge far and wide through academia, training and CPDS with architects across the UK. Eventually, however, all great things must come to an end. Therefore, with immense pride, gratitude, and some sadness, our current Passivhaus build in Sheepridge, Huddersfield, will be our in-house construction team’s final project. Over the last fifteen years, the team’s work has been integral to our understanding of Passivhaus and low-energy building. We look to take that knowledge further in the next step of the business’s future as we continue to develop our UK-wide supply chain in high-performance windows and doors, MVHR systems and other energy-efficient products and services.
Sheepridge is a significant marker in the history of the Green Building Store. It is a culmination of fifteen years of hard work and dedication in advancing Passivhaus building and knowledge in the UK. Delivering homes for the future, that are low carbon, like Sheepridge, are first about dramatically reducing a building’s energy use, however, once that is understood and achieved, we have a responsibility to better understand embodied carbon in a build, i.e. the amount of CO2 that is released in the manufacture of the materials that are then used in building the home, and find ways to address this. At Green Building Store, we are committed to using our Passivhaus knowledge to do this and become a leader in understanding embodied carbon in our buildings. With the use of a timber frame construction and woodfibre based insulation at Sheepridge, we are well on the way to creating a so-called Carbon neutral building.
We want to share our knowledge from the last fifteen years. This is what Sheepridge represent. This is why, as part of the Passivhaus Trust’s Summer Open Days in 2023, we will open the live construction site at Sheepridge and host tours on Friday 23rd, and Saturday 24th of June.
The tours at Sheepridge will be an opportunity to hear from our team, led by our Managing Director Andy Mitchell, about the project at Sheepridge and the lessons learnt from our first project at Denby Dale to this final project. Our Sheepridge Client, Jane Simpson, who is an architect, will also speak about the project and why she wanted to build a Passivhaus. More information about the tours and the preceding talks at our offices at Heath House Mill can be found here.
The project at Sheepridge sees an old 1930s bungalow being replaced with a SIPS-designed (Structural Insulated Panel) system. The project has seen us working closely with Nelson-based Buildakit who specialise in the construction of new build energy efficient timber frame and SIP panel homes. The Passivhaus Open Day tours will provide an exciting opportunity for anyone interested in low-energy and Passivhaus buildings to visit a live site and hear from the team.
