Hi my name is Mandy Knebel and I live in Cambridge (The town of trees) in NewZealand.
I am married and we have two adult children, 2 dogs and 3 chooks.
One of my passions in life are dogs and that is why I love my work so much because I am a dog groomer. Another passion is architecture and house design in particular energy efficient warm healthy homes.
We opted to use FPS, Frame Protection Systems to wrap the house, we chose this system as its watertight and breathable. Frame Protection System, FPS® Weathertight®™ system is a comprehensive roof and wall underlay system for timber and steel frame, panel and prefab building elements, providing both interim and permanent weather protection plus moisture control within the wall or roof structure. FPS® Weathertight™ is certified to allow internal work to proceed to completion before the roof and wall cladding are installed. You can purchase the products from ITM and possible other similar companies. We dealt directly with FPS as we want to make the house airtight and they were really keen to give us the training needed so we apply the products correctly. (I believe FPS is Passive House certified.) FPS is weathertight and UV guaranteed for 3 months. So we have to have the house clad within the 3 month window but at least it is weathertight to work on! This pic below, the roof is...
Good morning to my wee group of blog followers... I don't think I have gone into why we chose MAXRaft for our foundation... I chose it because as far as I am aware it is the only fully insulated thermally brocken slab design available in NZ. It has a super high R value (4 to 4.5 R value) and it will save us shed loads in heating bills. It is not the cheapest way to do your concrete floor slab but for the extra cost (aprox 10% more) in my view its a no brainer. I did not want heat escaping out of my floor in my warm healthy energy efficient home so it was an obviouse choice. The way I look at it... compare it to yourself in winter, would you wear warm thermals and a jacket then go out in bare feet or jandals, no no no well I would not, I would be putting my wooley socks and boots on, so why would you insulate and watertight your walls and roof and not fully insulate your floor! The pic below is a drone shot (thanks Gary) of the site with the freshly delivered MAXRaft in...
Well Hello out there.. Here is a lesson in patience - for all people building or thinking about it. No I have not fallen of the face of the earth, just been busy with other stuff and Christmas and also nothing has happenned on the build... Nothing at all, infact I have put our insurance on hold till we have trades back on site. The reason we are having to be so patient is the machine that will be making our SIPS (structually insulated panels) has been held up in a port in Canada waiting for shipping and due to a number of reasons, one being no shipping containers available, we are having to play the waiting game. Hopefully we wont have too much longer. We could have had them made by hand but we would rather wait for the specifically built machine, which will be super accurate. Our concrete still looks great and I regulary walk about on it as if there are walls up. Imagination is a great thing you know! In case any one is interested there is a Webinar coming up on Koto Design. Whic...
Hi my name is Mandy Knebel and I live in Cambridge (The town of trees) in NewZealand.
ReplyDeleteI am married and we have two adult children, 2 dogs and 3 chooks.
One of my passions in life are dogs and that is why I love my work so much because I am a dog groomer.
Another passion is architecture and house design in particular energy efficient warm healthy homes.