Eco Building in Bulgaria

Eco building in Bulgaria is something that is attractive to a lot of people. The idea of saving the environment and saving money at the same time is a ‘win-win’ situation. But before this article discusses the various types and aspects of an ecological build or renovation, it is important to discuss quick and easy ways of saving money first.

There is little point having an energy efficient house if you don’t have an energy efficient attitude. Some simple and cheap ways to save money are turning of your electrical appliances and not leaving them on standby; swapping your light bulbs for long lasting ones; fixing that leaky tap; turning down your boiler; fitting draught excluders on windows and doors and not draining the bathwater until its cold (you paid to heat it up!).

Other ways you can save money and the environment but require a bit of forethought are to thoroughly lag your loft with insulation (including that draughty loft hatch); fit double glazing, externally or internally insulate your house (external is generally best), install under floor insulation, buy energy efficient appliances like dishwashers and fridges and have an efficient heating system installed.

If you have done these thing already and want more information please read on.

There are many different aspects of an ecologically friendly build. The first one of these is to use environmentally friendly products and the most environmentally friendly product is a recycled product. Bulgaria has a great tradition of reusing building materials. Bricks, roof tiles, timber, stone and many other things are reused out here as a matter of necessity and practicality. This means you are off to a good start before we have even begun!

There are two main types of eco builds, a purposefully designed new build and a renovation or retrofit. The latter is the most common so we will start there. The information that follows is as simple as possible, to allow it to be accessible to the layperson.

A renovation of a property is a wonderful time to do an eco build but it can be done afterwards (i.e. as a retrofit). The three things you want to be saving money on are electricity, hot water and heating. If you get it right you won’t just be saving money but it will be free!

Generating your own electricity can be done in many ways. The most well known are PV (photovoltactic) collectors. These clever things turn sunlight into electricity and power things from satellites to calculators and they can power you house as well! The system has a few other important parts and they are somewhere to store the electricity (no sunshine at night!) and something to regulate your electricity. The electricity is stored in large 12volt battery banks somewhere dry and warm inside your house. Clever electrical gizmos regulate the highly variable electricity that comes from you PV solar panels and protect and extend the life of your batteries. This is because the amount of electricity produced depends on the amount of sunlight. Brighter sunshine means more electricity. Other gizmos convert the 12volts back to the standard 240volts that we are more used to although large numbers of people when they have this system opt to have as many of their appliances run on 12volts as possible and not 240volts. This is because converting 12volt to 240volts uses up a lot of electricity and makes the system inefficient. It is now possible in some parts of the world to sell back your excess electricity to the power companies.

The PV solar panels have to be carefully sited. They can be roof mounted, on racks in the garden or even on the house walls. They must be pointing towards the sun (south facing) and at the best angle to catch as much sunlight as possible.

Other ways to generate electricity are through wind power and water power. Wind power works in the same way as the large wind turbines. The wind drives the blades around to produce electricity. If you have a stream or a lake on your property you could harness the water via a water wheel to produce electricity. Both wind and water store and resupply the electricity in the same way as PV solar panel system above.

Generating hot water is probably the most popular option due to cost of initial outlay and pay back times. There are many different systems available but they all work on the same principle. This is to collect heat from the sun and store it as hot water. It is in effect liquid sunshine. The suns rays are collected by solar panels; these transfer the heat into water that flows within them. The hot water is then piped inside to be used later. The most basic system available in Bulgaria is an old oil drum, painted black and placed on a roof to heat up in the sun shine. The system can been seen on many old Bulgarian houses but the problem with it is that although the water gets hot during the day it cools quickly at night. This means no hot shower in the morning and is the reason why the hot water should be stored inside your house.

The system has a few more components like pumps, specialized boilers, reservoirs, expansion vessels and a computer brain to tell them all how to work. The best systems are those with the least number of components (more reliable), low maintenance, highly efficient, long life span and elegant in how they work.

If you are having an eco renovation you could have one or both of the two systems mentioned. There is a lot more to it than mentioned here and no two systems are the same. This is because the electricity and water usage will vary between households and therefore the demands will be different. The location of the house also has an effect on the sizing and placement of the systems

The most practical heating method for an eco renovation is the wood burning stove. Other options are available but they are not efficient unless they are in a specialized new build. You may think that buy burning the wood you are damaging the environment but in comparison you are not. In Bulgaria they have managed forests and when they cut down a tree another gets planted and this means you are not contributing to deforestation. It also means that the carbon dioxide released during the burning of the wood is reconverted back into a tree in time.

Most renovations have a wood burning stove and most have a pumped system that will heat radiators, so as to not just heat one room. This is where most people stop but it is possible to have your wood burner drive under floor heating and provide hot water to shower and wash the dishes. If this is linked to solar hot water panels you have plenty of hot water in summer and winter and a lovely warm house, with warm floors in winter. Of course this is no good if your house isn’t well insulated (including underfloor) and double glazing.

With a new build you can do all the things mentioned above but better. The house can be built to be perfectly aligned to catch the suns rays efficiently in both summer and winter. It can be massively insulated to require less heating in winter and be cool in summer. In fact, a house can be built to require no heating at all. Ever! It could be built to require no heating in winter, no cooling in summer, be electrically self sufficient and if you have a well not be connected to the mains water. This house could be built in the middle of nowhere and function perfectly, even with broadband internet. The layout inside could be light, modern, spacious with all mod cons or rural and rustic. The details of this however are beyond the scope of this article.

This article has hopefully given you a broad overview of what is available. There are many other areas not covered including log cabins, rammed earth houses, rammed tire houses (extreme recycling), adobe, straw bale and daub building methods, passive solar houses, sunspaces, trombje walls, solar swimming pools, reed bed filtration systems, composting toilets and many many more.

If you are interested in any of the above projects or would like more information please contact us.

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