Period Lime Mortar Brick work EnerPHit Farm House
Oxford Farm House
Conversion of a period farmhouse
We have recently completed a commission to undertake the MVHR design and installation to a 19th century prestigious, and very beautiful, period brick built farm house.
The challenges that presented in this extensive renovation were considerable, but our extensive experience from working with a vast variety of build types was put to task, and we are immensely proud of the results!
Where there once stood a building whereby any form of room heating would simply escape straight through the walls and roof space, leaving the home feeling constantly cold, drafty and uncomfortable, now stands the same beautiful home that now requires minimal energy to maintain a warm, comfortable room temperature through-out all seasons.
The first challenge: For an MVHR unit to run and work to full efficiency, it is essential that the building is entirely air-tight, but the historic brick walls on this house were built using lime mortar, which needs to ‘breath’ to avoid moisture becoming trapped within them.
To resolve this issue, instead of using a plastic sheeting solution to secure an air-tight layer, as would be common place for a modern brick built structure, a breathable fibre board and render was installed to the inside face of the exterior walls, creating a continuous airtight lining to the entire building.
The next big challenge was in transforming the existing cold open loft space into an air-tight warm area for the main MVHR unit and duct run.
This was overcome this by removing the roof tiles and running the air-tight membrane over the existing rafters, and then facing the exterior surface with breathable fibre board. Once this installation was complete, the original roof tiles were re-hung to preserve the historic integrity of the farmhouse’s appearance.
The scale of this building meant that we were able to use solid steel ductwork throughout from the warm, air-tight loft space, and dropping the ducts down through new built in wardrobes, which ensured that the steel duct-work was completely hidden away from view.
Mango Projects, with 20 years experience of design and installation of MVHR units in passivhaus and eco-homes behind us, has the experience and technical knowledge to advise and design systems, and work around more challenging projects such as this enerphit renovation, where many of our competitors are still ‘new to the game’.