The Barrel Store

The latest incarnation of a historic stone building in the Cotswolds – this brewery building, once a theatre in the mid 80’s, has been converted to an exceptionally executed EnerPHit (the Passivhaus retrofit standard) Youth Hostel operated by the charity New Brewery Arts. Proceeds from the business return to support the local community to get creative. During the 2020 Covid lockdown, the hostel turned to housing local homeless people.

The Barrel Store has 14 rooms and can accommodate 40 guests. The retrofit involved constructing a timber frame within the old stone walls, on an insulated raft. The existing building had a good form factor, and relatively high internal gains, so the team were keen to meet EnerPHit Standard via the energy approach rather than the component approach, resulting in the lowest achievable space heating demand. A key challenge was that the building was heavily over-shadowed, and the conservation heritage constraints limited the opportunity to create new openings. All glazing has extremely deep reveals, and as a percentage of the treated floor area, is a modest 8% which minimises the impact of solar gains, and ensures summer comfort.

The nature of the building dictates a high domestic hot water (DHW) demand, and based on the analysis of gas bills, it is performing as intended. Internal gains are mitigated via an efficient DHW distribution. Ventilation is provided via two Helios commercial MVHR units (Passivhaus certified components) mounted in the loft space, serving the left and right halves of the building. Each typical bedroom is ventilated as a ‘closed cell’ with supply into the bedroom and extract from the en-suite WC/shower, to avoid acoustic issues with air transfer through the bedroom doors. Ventilation is demand-controlled based on relative humidity, and supplemented with natural ventilation via windows.