After a relatively quiet month or so we’re now firmly in events season. There’s two of them to kick the year off , BSEC, the schools exhibition and conference run by my company, this week followed swiftly by the behemoth that is Ecobuild thre working days later. A chance then for something of a [...]
Posts Tagged ‘refurbishment’
Refurb update: the chills and heat pumps
I am currently writing this sat next to an electric heater wearing a slanket. For those unaware of the unexpected Christmas phenomenon that was the slanket it’s a blanket with sleeves. Yes, you look like you’re in a straight-jacket, and it may well have been a seasonal gimmick, but for dwellers of leaky Victorian houses [...]
10 most popular posts of 2009
Arse about tit given my last post but here’s the most popular posts on Zerochampion in 2009. A shout out to the team behind the East London refurbishment project who guest-posted during the year and proved plenty of value throughout the year. And to architectural student Benjamin Kinch for his thoughtful piece on BREEAM. Here [...]
The refurbishment challenge: air tightness
Guest blog by Robert Cohen, technical director at Camco, who is undertaking an ambitious green refurbishment project in east London. Here he reveals some numbers on the performance of the house and the long painful process in achieveing and measuring air tightness
In my first blog in this series (January this year), our project was on [...]
The green refurbishment, part four
Continuing the series of guest posts on a refurbing a Victorian house in Hackney. Joint client Bronwen Manby takes up the story, highlighting window drama, working with her brother the builder and questioning the point of party wall surveyors
So of course the ‘extreme refurb’ is over budget and behind on timetable, but
not drastically so – [...]
My and my boilermen
Continuing the series on my personal refurbishment
You wonder why the general consumer can get a tad confused about how to progress with domestic building work. Then you do it yourself and wonder how anyone comes to coherent decision. An example: my wife and I have had the pleasure of nigh-on six or seven plumbers inspect [...]
Refurbishment Question Time
First in a series seeking free advice for my upcoming refurb project
So, about six weeks have passed since I moved into my Tooting pile, if that expression doesn’t sound somewhat inappropriate. A month and a half of doing the easy, if still sweat inducing, stuff. Pulling up, ripping or steaming off or smashing into smithereens. [...]
My refurb begins
A feeling of weary satisfaction after just over a week’s work on my new house in Tooting, south London. This has consisted largely of ripping stuff out, from contents of a cellar and garden sheds to carpets, wild vegetation, door frames, electric appliances (three fridges and a freezer and an old Amstrad desktop stereo [...]
Eco-refurbishment challenge part 2
Guest post from Robert Prewett at architect Prewett Bizley, who is designing the eco-refurbishment of a Victorian house which featured in a previous post in January
In around six months time, works to a Victorian terrace house in Hackney will be complete. Though a modest project in terms of scale, it’s an exciting one for [...]






