The house is now complete and lived in. The trauma of employing an architect is behind us, we hope that that particular architect can never get insurance, and therefore can never practice again, and therefore cannot ruin anyone else's life. Architects should understand the laws of physics but obviously some don't, quite how that happens I am not sure, perhaps university education isn't what it should be. One day the architect's professional body may start to act professionally and stipulate rules for the practice which put the profession on a par with all others. Until then the best advice we can give is to not employ an architect if you can avoid it, buy a kit house, use a surveyor, anything but use an architect.

All the repair work was done by us, so we know its good.

All the design modifications were done by me, so I know that they obey the laws of physics.

The performance of the building is now satisfactory and some interesting observations have been made. Our energy use is logged on the Oxford University site : imeasure.org.uk this has shown some points:

Domestic Hot Water: our gas central heating boiler does this all year round, in the summer when the CH is off this costs only 10p/week the standing charge for the meter is 35p/week! Logically this can be extended to the year and say that the DHW cost is less than £6/year, the standing charge for the meter is £20/year.

Central Heating: There are two CH zones with their own controllers so that we don't need to heat the whole house if we don't want to, the CH programme is only on for less than an hour in the morning, 7:15 to 8:00 when we get up, DHW comes on for 15minutes at the end of this period, and while TRVs are fitted to all rads most of them are set to max, the boiler fires once and stays on for a long time in an efficient mode and typically does not get used again that day at the building remains warm enough until late afternoon, all windows are K glass and allow solar gain to top up the heating unless its a very overcast day, at some point we will burn wood for the late afternoon and evening. Our Gas bill is of the order £300 /year, £275/year for gas central heating, the boiler service will cost about half that.

Windows are an interesting item to consider, while SAP 2009 / 2012 will provide great detail of calculations, the practical reality may be different, we have seen a great number of double glazed units loose their integrity over a period of time, the cost of replacement can be significant therefore there is a marked reluctance on the part of many home owners to replace blown units until the interior is well misted and with unit obviously beginning to become obscured. A double glazed unit may only be guaranteed for 5 years and likely to fail well within 10 years, but at a cost of replacement to an average house of £2,000 for all windows, many do not get replaced as soon as they fail. The actual thermal performance of a blown d/g unit may be better than nothing but will be less than the original, and many will be like that. This building has had almost £3,000 spent on replacing d/g units in 14 years, one has to consider the cost benefit of that.

Electricity is an expensive fuel and there is little one can do to minimise electricity use given a particular lifestyle, obviously one can fit low energy bulbs and take other measures to ensure that electrical appliances are being used efficiently but it is generally a life style choice to have a refrigerator, freezer, cooker, TV, computer, etc. We considered PV but decided that the pay back time for the capital cost for a couple in their 60s and possibly not in their final home was unfavourable.

We live in a conservation zone and we are made to replant for every tree that falls, we actually do more than the minimum but still have a significant quantity of timber from our acre of woodland which we have "spare" this we use as fuel, and it works well for us.