Mindful Homes is a small property management and development organisation that has built and renovated a range of homes and offices over the last 30+ years.
A mindful home is a home where you want to be - a place that you enjoy living in. When you want to be where you are then you naturally become more present in your self and with your family. When you’re present with your self and your family, in both the happy times and the challenging times, then life just gets better. We aim to create homes that people love living in.
Mindful Homes is part of the Counselling Psychology Services Group.
We’re mindful that a home is much more than a house and that each home can also contribute to our communities and our natural world.
Creating homes for families is a wonderful thing in itself.
We are also, however, in the midst of a long term demographic disaster with rates of reproduction well below replacement levels. Many people of parenting age want to have more children than they actually get around to having. There are a range of reasons for this but one of the most important is the limited availability of family homes. We believe, therefore, that providing homes for families is of huge benefit to both the individual family and society as a whole.
We are also in the midst of a potential climate change catastrophe and believe that all new homes and offices should be built, or renovated, with a net zero goal.
A net zero home emits zero C02 while UK residential homes in general contribute approx. 20% of UK emissions - primarily through heating and electricity. The average UK home emits approx. 4000Kg of C02/annum (6000kg including waste and transport) and the average lifespan of a modern UK home is approx. 100 years. In contrast we build durable net zero homes designed to last twice as long.
As a comparison, the average new, low emission UK car emits approx. 1155Kg/annum (6,600 miles @ 175g/mile). The five example net zero family homes in our portfolio below will therefore reduce C02 emissions during their lifespan by approx. 4 million Kg or the equivalent of driving a modern low emission car for 3,463 years (approx. 22.9 million miles). Building durable net zero homes is considerably more expensive but we are an ethical investor and believe that, in a rapidly warming world, it is unethical to build anything else.
Environmental challenges aren’t just limited to the climate. This is partly because many of us have lost touch with our natural surroundings and we aim, therefore, to build homes that are integrated with nature. When we live close to nature we also learn to love and care for nature. There’s also plenty of research that demonstrates that when people spend time in nature they’re both healthier and happier.
Biophilia is a concept coined by the psychologist Erich Fromm which he defined as “the passionate love of life and of all that is alive”.
A bat-friendly home...
We built this net zero rural family home with solar powered air-source underfloor heating and triple-glazed doors and windows. Two air-source heat pumps were installed, a first in the UK, to ensure the house on both the ground and first floor had underfloor heating throughout. To build it we demolished the old Coach House but reused the original stone in the new building. Its Energy Performance Certificate is very slightly above a net zero rating (-0.2 tonnes of CO2 annually).
We renovated this old farmhouse close to the village of Nunney. The original section of the farmhouse may well date back a couple of hundred years. We restored it by removing the pebble dashing to expose and clean the old stonework, uncovering and renovating a well beneath the kitchen, renovating the original cellar and restoring a range of other original features. Together with these restorations we fully insulated all the internal walls, floors, and roof and installed solar powered air-source underfloor heating. The renovated farmhouse achieved a net zero Energy Performance Certificate (0.0 tonnes of CO2 annually).
The Hermitage farmhouse is within the Mells area and close to Postlebury Wood, where 12% of the UK’s Greater Horseshoe bats reside. We needed bat surveys and a licence granting us permission to rebuild the entire roof and ceilings. The surveys revealed that Common and Soprano Pipistrelle and Serotine bats emerged from the house. Our builders worked closely with the ecologist to install bat boxes in nearby trees and hedgerow. In addition when the new roof was complete, entry holes in the North East gable end for one species and cracks and shelves for the other species ensured the bats could gain entry to the roof void. Rough sawn untreated timber spanned the whole internal roof structure to ensure they can easily attach and hang from it.
In 2025, the next phase of the build comprises a new three bedroom barn style house and two, three bedroom semi-detached barns - rebuilding the barns using the existing materials wherever possible.
The creation of these new dwellings, sympathetic to the countryside and barn like in appearance, will also feature a green-eco design ensuring we build a home that is warm, comfortable, easy to run and maintain, and are happy homes for families to love living in.
We built our Head Offices at Woodlands in the Somerset village of Baltonsborough. This purpose-built net zero building is in the form of a solar powered timber framed structure with air-source underfloor heating and triple-glazed doors and windows. To ensure the woodland tree roots were not damaged, the foundations were pile driven and a rain water drainage system installed to protect them from flooding. The offices Energy Performance Certificate is very slightly below a net zero rating but, when combined with the surrounding trees, it operates with a continuous CO2 reduction.
