Osborne House beforeOsborne House was build in the 1920s but extended in various stages since the 1960s. Like other buildings of its period it is poorly insulated and requires a lot of energy to run.
Osborne House has been a wonderful family home to live in a fantastic location surrounded by fields and close to local amenities in the village of Fulford, attached to York. |
About usWe bought Osborne House in 2004 as a home for our young family. Our third son was born in 2005, and as our boys started to grow bigger we could no longer fit into a house with three small bedrooms. We started to think of options to increase our living space.
Our first plans centred on extending the house. We developed plans to demolish the extensions, renovate and insulate the original house and add a new extension. However, the difficulties of insulating the old house and attaching the new extension meant we could not achieve the environmental standards we wanted. So we reluctantly decided to demolish our lovely home and build a new passivhaus for our family. |
Osborne House plansOur architect, Phil Bixby of Constructive Individuals, has been very helpful in formulating our thoughts into a Passivhaus design.
The design is based on fabric-first principles of excellent insulation and airtightness to reduce the energy needs of the building. All living areas are on the south side of the house with decent size windows as well as a large south facing roof for solar panels with an overhang and shading on the south side to prevent overheating. The house will have a mechanical heat recovery ventilation system but no central heating system. The solar panels should over the year produce more power than we consume. |