WITH a three-year-old son and newborn twins, Andy Simmonds felt it was time to expand his two-bedroomed home in Hereford.

Grove Cottage’s sizeable garden made it viable but as executive officer of the Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB), the pressure was on to do something a bit more conceptual.

He didn’t have to look far for inspiration of course and, being an experienced architect, the 42-year-old set about creating an all-efficient, super-insulated house that would provide the space he and wife Lorna needed and also potentially cut their CO2 emissions by a massive 80 per cent.

That was July 2007 and the former railway inspector’s 1869 cottage now boasts three bedrooms, a living room, play room, kitchen and a utility room. It also has triple-glazed windows and a state-of-the-art ventilation system, providing and retaining high-quality air.

Now Andy hopes others will follow suit and help Herefordshire “set the national pace” for energy-efficient housing.

Renovations were done to PassivHaus guidelines, an EU building standard developed in Germany which maximises on solar energy, heat-recovery methods and low-energy appliances. But as ideal as it sounds, it’s not something everyone will be able to do.

“There are going to be some people that are able to do this, but others could find it too expensive,” Andy said.

“But there are so many other things that could be done.”

More than 100 people turned up to The Watershed in Hereford recently to hear just what those alternatives were.

In a presentation, Andy outlined how the county could develop its own heat plan, for example, which would see low carbon, more affordable heat in city houses generated by large, solar panelled fields in the surrounding countryside.

Now the father-of-three, efficient energy consultant David Olivier and development charity Community First are hoping Herefordshire Council will seriously consider the ideas they have come up with.

“It is based on the fact that Herefordshire has a promising mix of opportunities. And a close relationship between city and countryside make these proposals extremely do-able,” Andy said.