A Seamless Journey to a High-Performance Swedish Home: A Client Story
In 2022, Svenskhomes was approached by clients who had recently sold their farm and were eager to create an energy-efficient home on a retained section of their land. The plot included an old farm cottage—an ideal opportunity for redevelopment and a perfect canvas for a modern, sustainable replacement home.
As is the case with many Svenskhomes projects, the journey began in our Ipswich showroom. Here, we explored the clients’ ideas in detail, using our inspirational brochure to help them visualise and refine the home they had always envisioned. With a clear sense of their goals from the outset, the clients appointed Andrew Watkins of Mullins Dowse Architects to translate their ideas into a bespoke design. Andrew delivered a concept perfectly tailored to both their lifestyle needs and their chosen retirement plot. Once completed, the planning application was submitted and approved without delay.
With planning secured, progress on site moved swiftly. The original farm cottage was demolished, and groundworks and drainage were completed efficiently. By early October 2023, when the new home arrived from Sweden, the foundations and scaffolding were already in place. Within weeks, the structure was erected, made watertight, and ready for first-fix electrics and plumbing by November.
One of the key advantages of our Swedish-built homes is the ability to undertake groundworks concurrently with the home’s off-site manufacture. This approach can save up to two months of on-site construction time. For this project, our shell-erect service—which provides a structurally complete home ready for internal first-fix and external cladding and roofing—was completed in just four weeks. In total, this streamlined approach can shorten the overall build time by as much as four months.
The finished home delivers outstanding energy performance. It achieved an A-rated energy efficiency score of 97 and an air permeability reading of 3.5 m³/(h·m²) @ 50 Pa. Installed technologies include a 6kW ground source heat pump utilising the existing water borehole, a 6kW photovoltaic array paired with a Tesla Powerwall (13.5 kWh capacity), and an electric log burner. Together, these systems showcase the effectiveness of the Svenskhomes fabric-first philosophy and airtight construction methodology.
This project is a testament to what can be achieved when thoughtful design, precision engineering, and efficient construction processes come together—delivering a home that is not only beautifully crafted but also built for a sustainable, low-energy future.
