#171 - Ben Adam-Smith - UK Passive House owner and podcaster on his custom build

Ben Adam-Smith worked in TV and radio for 15 years. With a growing concern about the environment, he wanted to play his part in looking for solutions. As our homes are probably the biggest part of our carbon footprint he started there. He set up a podcast called House Planning Help and documented what he learnt as he went about his own Passivhaus project. A decade on and his website is going from strength to strength. He also launched a membership community called The Hub to help others who want to build high performance, low carbon homes. Ben is passionate about the environment and believes with wise decisions about how we live our lives we can all make a difference. You can find more from Ben here:  https://twitter.com/BenAdamSmith https://twitter.com/houseplanhelp https://www.facebook.com/HousePlanningHelp 00:50 introduction  3:45 Sites near london 6:16 passive does not focus on embodied carbon, concrete and steel number one culprits  8:05 pollution and extinction, extreme weather 10:33 other ways to reduce footprint  12:05 flying  13:43 real estate, what do we do  16:00 more government incentives  17:05 victorian building being brought up to passive house system  18:50 incentive trends 19:50 what did you learn from building the passive house 24:30 Straw bale 27:50 gas boiler - radiators  28:55 ventilation system 34:00 where does the plug go 35:00 we can't make last minute decisions