3 Top Tips To Help You Succeed With Self Build And Design Home Projects

For most people the idea of a self build and design project would be a new kitchen, bathroom or extension but for several thousand people every year the ultimate project is a complete energy efficient home.

However, there are some hurdles that need to be overcome even if you have a plot of land that is suitable for building on, so as one of the most innovative new self build companies in the UK we thought we would cover 3 top hurdles you will face and offer 3 possible solutions to help you move forward with your self build project.

Self Build And Design Tip #1: Self Build Mortgages, Site Insurance And The CE Mark

As with all home purchases, mortgages tend to be an essential element to successfully securing the house of your dreams and until recently self build mortgages were not high on the priority list for UK banks.

The National Self Build Centre in Swindon have what is believed to be a revolutionary approach to the problem and they offer full consultancy for every aspect of your self build and design project.

The usual way in which self build mortgages are managed is for funds to be released in stages for land purchase and then build costs at various stages. Borrowing will always depend on circumstances and in some cases payments may be released in advance.

What the National Self Build Centre offers is a new concept of self build and design mortgages that allow you total freedom with your self build project by offering a complete self build mortgage insured payment upfront that would allow you to totally manage your project without the constant stopping and starting in between stage payments.

Self Build And Design Site Insurance and The CE Mark

We are used to our NHBC warranties in the UK and it has been the industry standard for decades.

The highest quality log homes from Europe often carry the CE Mark which is a construction certification that guarantees the resistance and strength of the structure..

For most people the thought of a timber house creates an element of fear about fire risks. Most houses in the UK are built with a timber frame and a brick outer skin and a closed door is supposed to allow for a half an hour escape time in the event of a fire. In Europe the standards are twice as strict as in the UK and there must be a one hour escape time.

As for self build site insurance you can now get instant cover and save money with several online companies who now cover this type of construction.

Self Build And Design Tip # 2: Code 6 Houses And Planning Permission

First and foremost there are no guarantees when it comes to obtaining Planning Permission, but as it stands your best chance in an unconventional planning situation is to apply for permission to build a Code 6 Home.

The home will have to be completely zero carbon for example it must have zero net emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from all energy use in the home. There are many factors that combine to produce a Code 6 Home including

• Improving the thermal efficiency of the walls, windows, and roof.

• Reducing air permeability to the minimum consistent with health requirements

• Installing a high efficiency condensing boiler, or being on a district heating system

• Using low and zero carbon technologies such as solar thermal panels,

• Reducing domestic water usage, managing surface water and waste and using low energy appliances and lighting within the home and the impact on the environment.

Self Build And Design Tip # 3: Building A House In Your Garden

Planning Permission will generally be granted when it can be demonstrated that the site is capable of accommodating a suitable scheme which adheres to the Local Planning Authority's development control criteria and Local Planning Policy.

If you live in a village or town, the development boundaries are likely to be established and there will be other constraints that need to be considered such as the provision of a suitable and safe access which is a high priority.

Your local County Highways department will often give free advice on whether an access is suitable. Your site is likely to be a non-starter. The site, its constraints and local planning policies form the framework for your self build and design project and at that point design considerations should be discussed.

Pete Cossie of Contemporary Log Living is on a mission to inspire and empower people to look at unique energy efficient self-build home kits, log cabins and Contemporary Affordable Homes to make a great investments in the real estate of tomorrow today.

How Much Impact Could We Make by Co-Ordinating All the Current Food and Environmental Projects?

Fruit, vegetables, cocoa, coffee, tea are all things we take for granted on UK supermarket shelves but how many shoppers know that they originated in Africa or were made from African produce?

UK shoppers spend about 1 million every day on food products from Africa, including some Fairtrade items.

The focus on climate change and on food miles, however, has created misunderstanding about the sustainability of food from African and highlighted how little we know about how the resulting changed shopping habits have impacted on developing countries.

Almost 75% of Africans relay totally on agriculture for their livings and severl million of them rely partly on selling produce to the UK to enable many of them to escape poverty.

Most UK consumers support the idea of making their shopping choices reduce poverty. However, they also worry about other issues such as price, food safety, the environment and animal welfare.

Now, to add to the pressure comes a new report this month (July 2010) saying that climate change threatens to undo years of work to tackle poverty in developing countries.

Forum for the Future's study emphasised the need for strong action in poor countries to tackle climate change but in tandem with efforts to boost economic development and it said international aid's efforts to tackle poverty should factor in climate change and measures to help poor countries adapt to its effects.

It wants them to avoid promoting high-carbon development and to help developing nations deal with the impact of climate change and seize new opportunities created by global movement to a more low-carbon economy.

The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) supported the Forum's latest report and also has its own initiative, FRICH Food Retail Industry Challenge to support the development of trade in food from Africa to the UK.

No in its third round of bidding the Challenge asks food supply and distribution business with their supply chain partners to test and develop innovative business models to bring new and higher volumes of food products from Africa to UK while improving the livelihoods of African producers.

So far it has funded seven challenges. They include Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate, seller of a famous Yorkshire Tea, which is working with Rwanda's tea authority, tea factory owners, the Rainforest Alliance and the farmers who supply the factories to develop a sustainable supply of quality tea for their famous Yorkshire Tea brand. Rwanda tea is now on UK supermarket shelves as a Yorkshire Gold 'seasons pick'

The Co-operative has long supported Fairtrade and is working with tea supplier Finlay Beverages, the Cooperative College UK and Africa Now to deliver the benefits of both Fairtrade and the co-operative business model for sustainable livelihoods for 8,000 small-scale tea farmers in Kericho, South-West Kenya.

Waitrose has been helping growers to adapt their cultivation and production processes to meet the environmental requirements of the LEAF Marque standard as a way of spreading the message of sustainable agricultural practices across Africa. The LEAF Marque guarantee for UK fresh grown produce has been used by Waitrose for the past three years and the company has now committed to helping all its suppliers to use environmentally responsible practices.

The third Challenge Fund bidding round invites UK companies to offer projects that will promote trade to some of the poorest countries north of South Africa and south of the Sahara

Its aims are enhancing productivity and adding value to any sector of the supply chain from the start in food production, through processing, storage, to compliance, financing or procurement

It also aims to extend the benefits of export supply chains to producers currently unable to meet market requirements or insufficiently established as export growers to be able to attract commercial investment in their operations.

Its third focus is expanding UK consumer demand for African produce in the face of concerns about food miles, environmental conservation, labour standards and food safety.

Search around a bit and it's possible to find any number of inventive pieces providing some solutions to the complex puzzle of climate change, environment and food scarcity.

They can be small and local - such as the Indian village treadle-powered irrigation system that has stabilised and improved cultivation there - or slightly larger like the FRICH Challenge focusing on a particular world region.

Or they can be potentially far-reaching - like the Biopesticides Developers' invention of promising new low-chem agricultural products such as biofungicides and yield enhancers to play their part in helping combat climate change and pests while increasing yield sustainably to help farmers, both small and larger.

It would be nice if all these disparate elements were co-ordinated to work in tandem to making access to food and a reasonable income fairer around the world alongside a significant global impact on preserving the environment.

Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers

There's plenty of evidence of research, projects and initiatives of all sizes happening around the world to combat climate change, restore the environment or increase farming yield sustainably from village irrigation schemes to R & D in low-chem agricultural biofungicides. Yet says consumer journalist Ali Withers we have little sense that they're making much impact.

How To Create an Environment of Investment - Or How Humanitarian Projects Could Save The Day

Sometimes, when surviving through an economic depression, especially like the last one, which had world-wide coverage and effect, the only way to get going at full speed again is by applying a massive kick-start.

Create an Environment of Investment.

Most noble comment. But which Government has the will, or the financial clout (especially after a series of such dramatic natural disasters) to start or jerk this fragile recovery into action?

Perhaps no 'standard' government has the financial clout any more. But what about an association of First Nations people?

More about that later; let's look at what is happening in the world, and issues that need addressing as rapidly as possible.

Those that spring most readily to mind are Global Warming, and our seemingly unswerving dependence on rapidly-dwindling fossil fuels, followed by a world-wide concern over poverty and health issues.

Let's take a closer look at some of these issues:

Our continuing desire to burn massive amounts of fossil fuels (petrol and diesel), as well as even bigger amounts of coal, oil, and natural gas on generating most of our electrical power.

We create monstrous, unsightly, and highly inefficient wind farms, using out-dated technology that in itself takes up to 20 years to replace the carbon footprint created to install them

Our continuing desire to throw away our waste in the most selfish manner, and then let our local councils either burn or bury it (or export it to some other country - who usually bury or burn it for us).

Our very fickle desire to build houses in a manner that takes such a high carbon footprint to achieve it, and causes so much waste by-products, and then, we insist in spending even more fossil fuels in an attempt to keep these houses hot in winter and cold in summer.

Then, do we make any attempt to conserve water. No, we regularly flush our toilets, public urinals waste Olympic Swimming pools of water every year; rainwater and waste water is just literally poured down our sewers.

How do we try to control diseases? We just get through millions of gallons of bleach, and other products that 'kill all known germs DEAD'. We treat fats oils and grease in the same manner, and just move the problems 'further down-stream', creating a superb playing field for all sorts of nasty pathogenic bacteria.

Let's look at each of the above points in more detail

Burning masses of fossil fuels to run our power stations, or run our cars and other transport. Until the recent Japanese nuclear disaster, Britain was on track to build 4 new nuclear plants. What an environmental and potentially disastrous choice. Electric cars? Not with the current battery issues and recharging times. But how about hydrogen produced from a simple cell, with a few gallons of water? Want to see a MAC truck or a Hummer running on one of these devices, with very little modification? Email me and I will send you a number of videos.

Wind farms. Have you recently been concerned about a collection of these prehistoric monsters getting planning permission to damage your view and your environment, as well as a danger to wildlife? We have the latest technology vortex wind turbines, that are unobtrusive, and far more efficient than the gargantuan dinosaur wind turbines.

Waste handled in the only proper manner. We have systems that can automatically sort all household waste (no more need to have selective bins); that can also take in dangerous hospital waste, green waste, oily sludge, tyres and plastics, and even human and animal sewage, and convert it very efficiently into green electricity - with No Incineration, and No Toxic ash. Efficient, maximised recyclables, reduced landfill needs, and reduced pollution. Perfect solution to our energy, resources, disease containment, and stops locking up scant fossil fuel based products on land fill sites for ever.

Sustainable Living. Why continue to build houses that need such a large carbon footprint to build, create so much waste, and then cost so much to run. Our houses are already built to the UK Government's Code 4 standards - probably 10 years ahead of anyone else.

Water -that scant resource that in some areas may cause a new World War. How about a collection of systems that can conserve water in toilets, recycle rainwater and other waste water, purify water, computerise crop watering, and how about this - a machine that can extract gallons of water every day from the air - even in a desert?

Using Nature to help fight disease. Rather than using chemicals that are toxic to our very environment, why not resort to Nature to fight natural illnesses. Using products such as EcoBug that uses 'good' bacteria to remove smells, fats etc, by outperforming pathogenic germs, alongside other natural products, we start to undo much of the destruction to our natural environment by this subtle move.

Eco-Tourism. Living with Nature. No point continuing what mankind has done increasingly over the last few centuries - destroying Rain Forests, hunting to extinction so many forms of wild life. Each Peace City will have an EcoPark area allocated to it, where the local natural flora and fauna, and indigenous animals and bids, are protected, encouraged, and enjoyed.

Fine. So we have many technological breakthroughs, that if they were to be adopted universally, what a great overall benefit they would have for all mankind.

Taking that process one stage further, and, following the lines of the United Nations 8 Millennium Goals, that also includes eradicating poverty and homelessness, reducing infant mortality, better education, better sports health, better employment which would lead to a much higher standard of living for so many millions of people across the world. If we could combine technological advances with these humanitarian goals, what a better place the whole world would be!

Now, going back to my earlier comment about a coming together of a number of First Nations people, who were able to combine their Sovereign Wealth into a suitable financial instrument of power, here we are looking at levels of resources that at this present moment in time, no 'conventional ' government could access.

What better way to utilise these resources to create a number of new 'Peace Cities' in a number of locations around the world, that combined all of the above benefits, including plans for education, employment, medical health, hospitals, shopping malls, sports awareness, agriculture, animal husbandry, with all the civic structure of a new City fully in place.

If these First Nations fully funded these projects, imagine the amount of local investment that this would attract - creating the climate for investment and humanity - and here you have the perfect kick-start to a far better, caring, humanitarian, peaceful world.

Far-fetched? It can never happen? Then I suggest you see what the Matua Karanga Foundation Trust is up to - under the control of His Excellency Chief Charles Hohepa - Sovereign Mandate of the Maori Nation.

Geoff Morris is working with a number of companies facilitating the humanitarian projects being implemented by the Matua Karanga Foundation. If you would like to understand more about His Excellency Chief Charles Hohepa, The Foundation, and the collaboration between First Nations, their Cultures, and the planned Humanitarian projects for around the world, please visit http://www.matuakarangaglobal.org