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suerowlands47

25. The Passive House / Letterbox Conundrum

Making the EcoBungalow as airtight as possible was a critical part of the build. Preventing heat loss by eliminating drafts goes hand-in-hand with high levels of insulation to create an energy efficient building. We’ve achieved an exceptional level of airtightness, with 0.2 Air Changes per Hour (ACH) at the interim test.

 

So, we couldn’t undermine all the hard work and careful detailing by putting a bloody great hole in the front door with a traditional letterbox. A solution for post that maintained the airtightness of the building fabric was essential.


Fortunately, we already had an easy answer to the problem. The original bungalow had no porch to the front door. Who builds a house in one of the rainiest parts of the UK without providing shelter to fumble for your keys, put your shopping down or for visitors to wait for you to answer the doorbell? In converting the integral garage, we relocated the front door from the middle of the house to the end. The roof was extended to create a simple porch, with a cupboard at the southern end sheltering the front door from the prevailing south-westerly winds.



The porch cupboard provides a place for Council recycling bins and for delivery companies to drop off parcels. It also provides our solution for post. We’ve built in a ‘through the wall letterbox’ from letterbox4you.co.uk. These can be expensive, and are also are mostly designed to suit the depth of cavity walls. The porch is just a single skin of blockwork, so much less deep than a cavity wall. I was pleased to find this suitable model at a reasonable cost. Together with large stainless steel house numbers, parcels and letters are finding their way to my house with no problems. And we haven’t compromised the building’s airtightness. A great example of how planning the design carefully from the start ensures there are simple solutions to potentially big problems.




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