Moonstone
Moonstone was designed to be one of Britain’s very best Eco-houses, far exceeding the recent Code 6 sustainable homes guide and exceeding the German Passivhaus standard. The house is an Autonomous house which meets the zero Co2 and zero heating standards, which is an incredible accomplishment considering this home is 21 times larger than the average British house, and has no heating demand, is not connected to mains water or sewerage, uses no fossil fuels, and is lit entirely by ultra low LED Lighting.
Centaur Special Interest Media, Ascent Publishing Ltd, 2 Sugar Brook Court, Aston Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, B60 3EX. Tel: 01527 834435
Looks stunning, cant wait to
Looks stunning, cant wait to see some more photos to do it justice!
Oh wow! This is in the
Oh wow! This is in the Cotswolds near one of my favourite pubs! My partner is a local farmer in the area and has been watching it grow! He has shared a number of pints with the owner at the local pub and its incredible to think that one man has done the design, build and construction for such a grand project!
Moonstone - Invisible cutting edge technology
A friend has just pointed out to me that this project has just been shortlisted for a possible award - I'm not sure if this is very PC but I've just read an article online at the Design Exchange http://amina.co.uk/html_emails/eshot_sept10/DE_article.pdf
I was introduced to this build over 4 years ago, the owner wanted to delibeartly hide all the high tech in the house, speakers in the wall, touch screen pads and all - in fact they didn't have any answers at the time, prefering to wait for technology to catch up with them rather than pay a premium price for it way back then. They even designed all ceilings and walls to take ground breaking LED lights five years ago - which was pretty risky considering even now, we don't regard LEd as a serious lighting solution. Pictures don't do this house justice, its 16,000 sq.feet over 7 floors - uses no mains water or sewage(all collected and recylced), no heating demand, all hot water is solar panel collecetd and not ground source heat pump as the article suggests - looking forward to a proper review of this house some time soon. I think the owner tries to the refer to the house as a postive energy house rather than a Eco house - turning the whole thing on its head - a house that pays the occupier to live in it !
Moonstone - Cotswolds
Well he dosen't own a beard and his wife doesn't have hairy arm pits !
But sorry to admit it ..this is the best eco house I have every seen...Tim Pullen..eat your heart out ! (saw it about 11 months before it was finsihed). Invited by Rehau and Nottingam Uni, this house destroys any pre-conception that size matters. John's (house owner) concept was to produce a house that produces more energy than it consumes in a year - SIMPLE. Not some silly idea in he future...but now..2010..houses that pay you to live in them...and to make matters worst he didn't choose a simple 3 bed semi to do it too - lets try a 1500m2 sq. house with spa, hot tub, indoor swimmiming pool ...all those nasty footballers' trashy indulent 21st century unnecessary lifestyle choices which quite frankly are ruining our planet...but he's made it work...monitoing the solar thermal array 2 yrs ago (mind you he wasn't living in he house at the time)..his solar thermal array (to me and U his hot water demands) - about 85% were met by solar thermal panels. I hope he is honest when he gets interviwed by the judges panel, cosh he really cocked up in my opionion...he has a 44sq.m solar array if he had reduced it to 28sq,m, he would have lost about 15% efficency but saved him about £11,500 in the process...any way money and brains don't always go togther.
Love and green hugs Conrad
Moonstone
I am amazed how a house that is so large needs less heating that an ordinary home to keep it and the occupants warm. This just smacks me that the homes we all live in are so unenergy efficient. At the same time the house looks stunning, someone has taken a lot of time and effort to design and create a modern classic.
Moonstone
Thsi is a fascinating project. I love the energy efficiency and am delighted that our invisible loudspeakers have been included into such an unusual and innovative project.
Babs at Amina Technologies Ltd
It was a pleasure to visit
It was a pleasure to visit Moonstone and meet John. The house is truly stunning in design, its setting and the attention to detail and effort put into the creating a "positive energy" home.
Matt Holland at Amina Technologies Ltd
Love the Moonstone house
The Moonstone house is great and I believe this is the eco friendly house we all should be trying to build. Even if you liked a different style and look you can't go past using the principles of the Moonstone house - it's awesome!!
Moonstone
Interesting project, great as an example of what can be done. But before we all get too excited about its low energy use what about the cost of building this. The cost of installing green energy hardware has to be calculated against the savings made in future energy costs compared to standard energy tariffs- pay back time. It would simply not be financially viable to apply these methods to a standard affordable family home, so this could not be regarded as the passive house of the future.
Can we rebrand it as the positive energy country mansion of the future.
+ve Energy Country Mansion - Moonstone
Agreed that it could be rebranded as a positive energy mansion - not not for the future. The size I think is a red herring, creating a building which is on the scale of an office building - which could house say 50 or more people, having no heating or cooling electrical requirements - and then minimising the lighting down to a minimal amount can only be good. And I disagree with Mrs Warren, the cost of installing green energy @has to be calculated agaisnt the savings made in future energy costs" - no ! Gas will stay relatively cheap for the forseeable future (despite peak oil) - that still means as a population we choose to burn and emit CO2 just becasue its the cheapest source. We have to get away from this style of thinking for our future generation's sake. This house is clever as its trying to use the SUN for all of its energy needs, yes agreed large capital costs up front, but then no running costs - unlike wood pellet burners, heat pumps (air & ground) and lots of other slighlty less green technologies. In conclusion if we focus on PAYBACK all the time, the enviroment will pay us back by heating up another 2 or more degrees - and that spells disaster for man kind.
Moonstone
Just to get back to something more basic - the article highlighted by Piers Marshal refers to LED lighting as 'even now not being regarded as a serious lighting solution' (or words to that effect), and this is SO not true! We have just installed a system that is completely LED - ceiling lights from Phillips. They are brilliant - literally! Pricey to buy - cheap to run and so energy efficient.
led lighting
can i ask who designed your lighting system
LED Lighting Design
Hi, Just thought i'd let you know that the LED lighting design was a joint effort between John Croft the owner, Kaine Pritchett from JK Audiovisual who instailed the LED Lighting & My self, Dan Nore from The Components Co. Ltd, who Designed & Manufactured the LED lighting Fixtures as well as the control LED Control system, If you want to get in touch here are our email address, kaine@jk-audiovisual.co.uk or dan@components-company.com
Moonstone LED Lighting
Hi Nicnac, the point I'm making is LED lighting still represents a tiny fraction of the lighting systems being installed even now, and yes I fully agree - offers all home builders & renovators some massive savings even over other low energy lighting solutions and the new ones all look beautiful. The sooner we all move over to LED bulb the better, especially with the ability to run a 12v lighting circuit and with more people generating there own electric through a PV (DC) panel- means losses from the dc/ac invertors are eliminated. The owners were brave enough to employ a specialist lighting designer who created his own version of strip lighting - I think in some places they were over 18m in length, all RGB (colour change with 1 million + colour shades) This replaced a stanadrd T5 fitting reducing energy consumption by over 70% - and sorry "trumans" I don't know his/her name. Perhaps it may be in the magazine article later
May not be the prettiest
May not be the prettiest house here, but the lessons are clear. This house pays you to live in it period. No mains water, no mains sewage all dealt with on site, minimal lighting and electricty demand coupled with next to zero heating load. All hot water requirements ment by Solar thermal not expensive air or ground source heat pumps - there are serious lessons to learn from this house. Looks 4/10, Eco-creditionals 12/10
The Moonstone Vote
The house of the future alive and well and living in the Cotswolds
All stone quarried from site and used in the walls and driveways. Recycling on a grand scale
Moonstone vote
Moonstone gets my vote - helped the owner put those slinky things in the ground - i think it was almost 2miles of black pipe for his heat pump, hope it works OK. Really nice guy - first time i have seen it finished
Moonstone
Just sounds cool...Moonstone.....all the others The Tin shed.....A victorian extension...Philpott...big and ugly slap in the middle of some open country side...make a statement......gets my vote every time
The Moonhouse is simply
The Moonhouse is simply awesome! The house is indeed clever and so is the designer. A truly magnificent feat of design and engineering - very well done!
moonstone the home
Having had the opportunity to work with John on this project, you get to see the finished article where as i saw what i think makes this a front runner.
And that was the passion of this build from John himself, the long hours (5am starts and midnight finishes) the snow, rain ,hail and sometimes sun he never lost the focus of this build.
To build a family home that is self sustainable using nature wherever possible.
Plus doing as much of the work himself (plus friends roped in)thus
being a true self build in ever sense of the word apart from the specialist stuff of course.
Having been back since completion i can tell you that the family feel is definitely there a true triumph to john and his family and friends in building a dream home (and saving the planet a little too)
Moonstone
The most outstanding home that i have ever come across- certainly has the wow factor! Lots of thought, and hard work has gone into this property.
It's a house that you truely couldn't ask or want for anything else. It is the perfect family home. Moonstone is just incredible and perfectly placed in a beautiful location!
We need more Moonstones
At a time when the demand for housing is increasing yet the funding available is being squeezed, the UK has to create many more opportunties for affordable housing. Even better, building homes that generate more energy than they use is a masterstroke which could make a real difference to the economy and the standard of living for millions of people.
This isn't just a great home, it's an inspiration.
moonstone the site
www.themoonstoneproject.co.uk to see how well this was done
You need to check this out
A picture tells 1000 words, a video tells a million !
I thought I had clearly made my mind up, on which house I was voting for...and it wasn't go to be Moonstone. Description of the house was bland, quoting this and that about being better than some German passive thingy standard, photos were poor and a bit footballers wives style house, and then..following up on the links that Conrad Holt posted, you come across
www.themoonstoneproject.co.uk -
why hasn't the owner promoted this or at least mentioned it. Just watch some of the footage, the owner comes over quite matter of factly, in fact apart from the last paragraph of the Chapeter "02. ArchiCAD & Planning Proposals" - you never get to learn about the personal struggle that they must have gone through. If we are voting for Britain's best 2010 home - this has to win, it's also incredibily topical at the moment Paul T
Clear winner
Having toiled over my own little project and caved in several times to the vagiaries of planning, and the sheer complexity of embracing new technology before it is mainstream, I am very happy to congratulate you for your obvious tenacity, determination and sheer hard work. You are a pioneer and deserve the highest praise.
MI6 HQ in miniature?
I quite like the barn-like appearance at the uphill end but the downhill end looks like a baby MI6 HQ or the sliced off multimillion pound penthouse top of some of those recent blocks on the Thames nearby - too hard, urban and of-the-moment for its rural setting I feel.
Budget
Am very impressed with the achievements, the architecture may not be too everyones tastes but most architecture isn't. Can anyone enlighten me as too the build cost? I'm sure the £/sqm is serious with all that technology.
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