3 things Rhys would do differently

1 Build a second bedroom

A house with a small footprint is important, but over the years, Rhys and Anne have had an increasing number of visitors. They are now building a small extension to house a guest bedroom, an office, and a food processing area so they can preserve large amounts of food without having to cram it all into their home kitchen.

2 No big picture window

An important rule of passive solar homes is to keep windows to a minimum, with most glazing on the northern side. When Anne and Rhys built the house, they included a triple bi-fold window on the south-west side to take in the views.

“It overheated us in the summer,” says Rhys. “We took out that window and extended our lounge out by 2m which gave us space for the wood stove.

“On summer afternoons, when the sun is low but still very powerful, we just took in more heat because having a structure like this, all the heat that shines in gets soaked up... and we overheated in summer. We installed small windows instead and now it works very well.

“It may have been a design fault early on, but the end result is really good.”

3The green roof

The couple are very proud of their roof, but Rhys says it was a big expense.

“I would think twice about doing such a massive green roof and retaining wall structure because it added many thousands to our construction costs… I probably would have tried to afford to have a two-bedroom house rather than a one bedroom one from the start.”