ruralZEDTM, a consortium of architects and specialist manufacturers at the cutting edge of the eco house-building industry, launches today 26 February 2008 at the annual EcoBuild exhibition, the ruralZEDTM housing system. Fully eight years ahead of the government’s targets for new homes to be zero carbon, the house has been awarded onsite Code 6 status, the highest level in the Code for Sustainable Homes.
The house is the first durable laminated timber frame to incorporate high levels of thermal mass that will help keep residents cooler in summer and warmer in winter, state-of-the-art energy saving building fabric, and enough building integrated renewable energy systems to achieve zero-carbon status.
Bill Dunster, Director of ZEDfactory, the architectural firm behind the project, said “The main goal with carbon neutral housing is to reduce carbon emissions and the risk of climate change. Until now, proposals and prototypes of other house designs have lacked the commercial and financial viability to make them serious alternatives to traditional housing and building techniques.
“The ruralZEDTM house has overcome financial constraints due to the strength of the ruralZEDTM consortium (including ZEDfactory, ZEDfabric, Rockwool, Rationel Windows, Charcon, Mi-space and Hansgrohe), which has created a house that is, in addition to being the most ecologically sound housing option to date, affordable to build and desirable to live in, making it the most serious contender in the race to beat the effects of residential carbon emissions.”
Using the consortium members’ respective expertise, ruralZEDTM housing system brings together the speed and quality of lightweight Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) at an affordable price. The flexible design and construction of the kit allows for detached, semi-detached or terraces of up to six homes, with variations on internal space and external appearance.
The timber frame can be adapted to three storeys with the same details and timber sections used for two storeys and embraces environmentally-friendly, energy-conscious, sustainable work and leisure places and master-planning for complete ZED communities.
By using a frame and traditional materials, as opposed to plastic foam, the construction is both durable and avoids problems with off-gassing and poor indoor air quality that can be inherent with other modern construction techniques. Hence it also has none of the concerns with combustibility that have been encountered with plastic foam construction.
David Wood, managing director of EcoBuild, said: “We are very proud to host the unveiling of the ruralZEDTM house. Industry players attending the exhibition will be able to see the sophisticated design specification of the ruralZEDTM house, as well as gaining an insight into the new building methods and the commercial viability of the house.”
The ruralZEDTM housing system is available from £1,150 per m2 (approximately £138,000 for a three-bedroom 120m2 house, excluding land purchase and construction costs) and £1,550 per m2 based on the purchase of six units at Code 3 and Code 6 status respectively.
