Rachel really enjoyed the entire renovation project
Rachel Parsons works as an educational consultant for climate change projects, which gives her an acute awareness of how we can all make a difference in our daily lives. ‘Teaching children about the simple things you can do at home, such as turning off taps and switching off lights, recycling and being less wasteful, made me determined to adopt a more environmentally friendly approach in my own home,’ she says. So, when she and her husband Tim bought a 150-year-old cottage in need of complete renovation, they resolved to make it as eco-friendly as possible.
Moving into a converted shed in their garden, they set about gutting the house, re-plumbing, re-wiring and installing a new central heating system. Insulation, both under the floorboards and in the roof, was brought up to double the advised standard and secondary glazing was applied to all the upstairs single pane windows.