House Planning Help Podcast

Ben Nother, a Director at Hawkland Group, explains the two different roles of Principal Designer in meeting building regulations and addressing CDM health and safety. He also reflects on how this has been integrated into their processes.

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Phil Neve explains what Passivhaus Premium is and why he chose to target the standard for his own self build in Somerset. He also talks through his biggest project challenge, which was obtaining planning permission to build in open countryside.

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Heather Johnson from AD Practice explains what Passivhaus Plus is, how it differs from Passivhaus Classic accreditation and what benefits achieving the standard will afford. She also reveals why most of her clients target 'Plus' and outlines the steps to achieve this on a project.

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Stephanie Kyle from Floyd Slaski Architects explains how we can design for disability, gender, religion, and anything that’s considered a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. She also highlights the biggest challenge of inclusive design which is people’s differing needs, and suggests how we best go about designing spaces.

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Guy Harris from AccessiblePRS explains why accessible housing is important, what the key considerations are and how to deliver it well. He also shares his experience of designing his own house as a wheelchair user.

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Toby Cambray talks about the experience of working on his own retrofit project, and the lessons learnt in the process.

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Toby Cambray talks about the risks associated with moisture in buildings, and the modelling techniques – like WUFI® – that can be used to assess those risks.

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Mike Whitfield shares his experience of running a local construction company that specialises in Passivhaus. He explains how the business is structured, and what tasks are tackled on a daily and weekly basis.

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Mike Eliason talks about his book, Building for People, and the massive opportunity we have to create better places through being more intentional and thoughtful.

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Laila Dudhill explains some of the challenges she faced when planning her new build home at the bottom of a sloping field. Not only did she have to deal with drainage across the site, diverting the natural flow of water away from the house, but also come up with a foul drainage strategy that would off-set phosphate discharge into the local watercourses.

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Katherine Adams and Connie Spoor talk about the circular economy and construction, and practical strategies for making reuse a priority on housing projects and self-builds.

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Chris Brookman from Back to Earth explains what wood fibre insulation is, how it could be used on a project and why careful specification is required.

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Florence Collier, founder of Humblebee, takes us step-by-step through the deep retrofit of her 1970s home. She explains the costs relating to each measure and the cumulative total as the project advances.

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Toby Diggens explains what it takes to meet the requirements of the Living Building Challenge, and working to the standard when renovating an existing building.

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Toby Diggens, founder and co-director of Digg and Co outlines how we can all contribute to creating ecologically diverse and resilient landscapes to combat climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Furniture maker Lucinda Leech shares her story of building a modest, but beautiful eco home.

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Howard Johns, founder of One Zero, outlines their home energy transformation service which includes topping up insulation and adding solar PV, battery storage and a heat pump.

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Cypren Edmonds, a housing activist and advocate for bio-based building materials, describes the challenges he has faced living in social housing in London, and the health benefits and energy efficiency that can be achieved through building with straw.

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Kareem Dayes, co-founder of RUSS in Lewisham, explains why setting up a Community Land Trust was a route to deliver genuinely affordable housing and create a better neighbourhood.

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