Down to the Final Straw!
Friday 9 May 2008
Ecology borrower's straw bale house wins Grand Designs Eco Home award
Congratulations to Ecology borrower Rachel Whitehead, whose straw bale house in Wales won the Grand Designs Best Eco Home award last night and is through to the Home of the Year live final tonight! The pink house known as Penwhilwr, which is Welsh for watchtower, is the first two-storey load bearing straw bale house in the UK and only the second in Europe and was part financed by a green mortgage from Ecology Building Society.
The planning for the house began many years ago, when Rachel bought the woodland in which her home sits. Planning permission took a couple of years to obtain, and the build had been underway for three years when Rachel approached the Ecology for a mortgage to fund the remaining works and the installation of the renewable energy systems. Up until this point Rachel, with the help of friends and volunteers, had lovingly but painstakingly sculpted the house by hand. The house is a truly sustainable home, incorporating photovoltaic cells, solar thermal panels, a wind turbine, rainwater harvesting, an Aquatron sewage composting system and biomass heating, using wood coppiced from her woodland.
Ecology Building Society specialises in providing mortgages for the construction of new eco homes and homes built from traditional and sustainable materials such as straw, timber, cob and rammed earth. Homes that acquire a certified energy standard, for example, Code for Sustainable Homes level 3 or above, or where energy savings measures or renewable technologies are installed, qualify for a special C-Change mortgage discount.
