Every month our team dedicate time to their continuing professional development. Developing our team’s skills in low energy design and construction is a fundamental part of our professional development and something that’s really important to us as a practice. Last month we were lucky enough to be hosted by Green Building Store in Huddersfield for some hands on air tightness training.
A Tour of The Showroom
The day started off with a tour of showroom with Sales Manager, Mike Shufflebottom, who talked us through some of Green Building Stores latest products. We were really impressed with the high performance windows & doors and MVHR systems that they had to offer. It was great to learn more about products that we often specify for our low energy and Passivhaus projects.
Back To The Classroom
Next up we headed over to the much needed warmth of the office. Director and certified Passivhaus consultant, Bill Butcher gave a really informative presentation about air tightness and insulation. This included some great advice and examples on good approaches to thermal and air-tightness detailing. It was great to see Bill as enthusiastic and passionate about building as ever.
Getting Hands-on
We spent the final part of the day in the workshop. This was where the real fun started as we got to practice our hands-on construction skills. We spent the remainder of the morning learning how to install the airtightness tapes and membranes that we use to help us deliver warm and comfortable homes.
We draw these on almost a daily basis so it was brilliant for the team to see what all those dashed lines look like in reality and how tricky it can be to fold and tape it all neatly.
Having the opportunity to learn something new or develop our existing skills is a really important part of the job for us. Most of this happens in a classroom or office environment, supplemented by visits to our ongoing projects on site. Rarely, though, do we get much opportunity to actually use the materials we specify.
We came away really enthused and more able to visualise those tapes and membranes we’re drawing day to day.
We’d like to say a big thank you to Green Building Store for their hospitality and delivering some fantastic training.
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