how to save money on bills every month in a super modern and beautiful smart house.
Do check out this smart winter house in summer outfit.
Text provided by the owners
Among the Haspengouw orchards, Bart and Graziela built a wood-framed house in 2018 that is way ahead of its time. The triangular, wide-open 5000 m2 terrain was allowed to remain wild except for a path through the field, and is the perfect setting for a sustainable and comfortable two-family home.
The residents are almost self-sufficient in everything: there is electrical energy, water, heating and cooling, even fresh eggs from the chickens. Graziela: “Thanks to this house I have learned to live with nature. The glass facade at the back, 6 meters high and facing south, is like a life-size TV screen and shows the course of the sun (and the birds that fly from one nature park to the other). The sun heats the house in the winter, and provides hot water for the shower all year round. On a dark, rainy day, we’re happy too, because the house is always bathed in daylight, and that’s when we know the rainwater tanks are replenished. That means that water filtered and mineralized by plants will be available. For free, a gift from nature.”
The trees will serve as a natural source of shade in the summer together with the smart controlled blinds which do the passive cooling. Sustainable living also means healthy living, and so Bart and Graziela used only healthy bio-ecological materials such as flax, wood wool, cork and paper flakes as insulation in the house.
Design aficionados will love this well thought-out architect’s house because it has been furnished with classic design pieces from Knoll, Ligne Roset, Brand van Egmond, and Eames. The bed linen is from Yumeko, with fair trade and sustainable fabrics.
For the oak parquet floor not a single tree had to be cut down. The planks are in their second life in this house. Their first life took place on the manufacturer’s exhibition floor. A nice example of circular thinking.
Domotics and electrical controls do the rest: the house, like its inhabitants, pick up every ray of sunshine and gratefully uses the sun to create comfort and warmth. If the solar energy can’t be used directly through the tall daylight windows while Bart works from home, a 1,000-litre heat battery neatly stores it for use when it’s less sunny or in the evening. The cute retro light Bart bought from a neighbour indicates in the bathroom with a colour how hot the shower water is.
Guests who come to stay in the holiday home have a separate adjoining cottage of 75 m2 at their disposal, which feels like a luxury cabin in the countryside. You will also see the orange soup bowl on the terrace: the hot tub that you can heat with wood. Not ecological, you said? Well, it is: there is almost always plenty of filtered rainwater in this house, so if you want to make things easier, you can fill in the tub with the surplus hot water from the heat battery. After a lovely bath in nature, simply drain the water into the plant filter, which mineralizes and recycles the water. Then the water is ready to be used again.
Location: Herk-de-stad, Haspengouw, Limburg, BE, 1 hour from Maastricht.
Construction: wood frame with healthy recyclable and / or circular
building materials
Energy: home automation, solar controlled smart heat pump,
photovoltaic panels, solar water heater, helofytenfilter rainwater
Living space: 163 m2 (house), 75 m2 (vacation home).
Instagram: @huisvanhout
Facebook: @huisvanhout
www.huisvanhout.be
Residents: Bart Goossens (@mbargo_photography) and Graziela Pancheri (@grazziee)
Video production by https://mindfulbuildingandliving.com/
