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Is this former meat factory the UK's most eco-friendly home?

A couple have transformed a disused city centre factory into one of Britain's most energy-efficient homes - which costs just £300 per year to run.

Julian Marsh and his wife Judy Liebert began the project to convert a former meat factory into a beacon of green technology in 2009.

Now, five years later, the home is in the running to be crowned the greenest home in Britain.

It features a waterless composting toilet, translucent walls to reduce the need for electric lighting and corridors on the outside the insulate the central rooms.


Julian, 63, an architect professor at Sheffield Hallam University, said: “It’s a huge honour that our house has been named as one of the greenest in the UK – and it would be great if it was awarded as the greenest.

“Judy and I are very proud of the work we have done and it’s great that our efforts have been recognised.

“It would be an amazing triumph to win but it isn’t everything to us.

“We just want to prove that it is possible, even in an urban environment, to build homes which are environmentally friendly.

“We haven’t got much time to start taking our energy consumption, and the effect it is having on the planet, seriously.”


After spending £150,000 to buy the former factory in Nottingham, the couple invested a further £500,000 to knock the building down, decontaminate the land and build the property.

Artist Judy, 67, said: “It’s been a big expense and a big project to take on, but we have built an efficient, beautiful house, that serves our practical and leisure needs perfectly – but does not pollute the environment any more than it absolutely has to.”

The completed property uses just £300 worth of energy and water a year.

Explaining how the composting toilet works, Julian said: “It’s like a wick chamber which you have to empty every couple of years.

“It’s perfectly hygienic – there’s no smell.”

He added: “We’re great believers in living a low energy life – this is just taking that to the next level.”

Outside the house there are solar panels on the roof and a central courtyard with a plentiful supply of fruit and vegetables growing.

Passages and stairs are on the outside of the house to act as a climate buffer to the living space within.

Internal doors and windows have been planned to allow hot and cold currents to funnel throughout the winter and summer respectively.



There is also a cistern which collects rain water to be reused for washing and a heat pump which draws sandstone from 70 meters below the ground. Insulation is made from hemp.

Julian, who is a father-of-two and grandfather-of-three, said: “We are right by a bus stop and only ten minutes from a train station too, both of which improve our green credentials.”

Now the couple have built their dream house they say they have no intention of leaving.

“We have built a home for life – a home that we can grow old together in,” said Julian.

“We are both very happy.”


But the couple have said that being shortlisted for the Guardian newspaper’s green building award - the winners to be announced next month - is the icing on the cake.

Julian said: “It was very unexpected.

“We didn’t have to enter the competition or anything, they just got in touch to say we had been selected.”

He added: “We designed the house to fit in with the life we wanted to lead, but it’s great to be recognised.”