• Swindon & Wiltshire Events
• Friday May 9 2025
• Author Name: Louisa Davison

How do you build a sustainable home, asks Swindon Festival

The Swindon Festival helping builders with their sustainable DIY dream home have released their line up for next weekend.

Hosted by the National Self Build and Renovation Centre (NSBRC), the Festival looks at everything sustainable from the initial design of a new DIY self-build to retrofiting existing homes.

The Festival – free to advance bookers – includes expert speakers in the NSBRC’s two main theatres from 10.30am both morning until mid-afternoon.

The talks and panel question times to make that sustainable DIY dream home a reality include:

• Carbonlite retrofit and renovation with the Association of Environment Conscious Building (AECB)
• Financing and budgeting your build project, and reclaiming VAT, with Buildstore
• Finding a building plot
• Sustainable and integrated architecture design and engineering, with AC Architects and Palmer & Partners Architects
• Building systems, Passivhaus, with PYC Construction
• Sustainable build materials, timber frames, windows and doors with Norrsken
• Interiors including kitchens with Sustique
• Heat and energy efficiency, heat pump ventilation and hot water, and window shading with Which?, Good Energy and Earth Save Products
• Rainwater harvesting

The Festival is family-friendly with a coffee shop and a Nature Zone to explore, including displays from the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, Wiltshire Climate Alliance, AECB, Morris Commercial and Good Energy.

Sustainability means energy efficiency, materials and affordability

“Interest in energy efficient homes is incredibly high, driven by concern over energy prices, alongside an inclination to do our bit for the planet. For some, ‘sustainability’ not only refers to the running cost of a home, but the materials used to construct it and the affordability of their project. We welcomed just shy of a thousand visitors to the Festival last year, and is all about inspiring people to get the best from their homes,” said NSBRC’s managing director Harvey Fremlin.

Visit their website to book advance, free tickets.