Green living: eco-renovating a period property It hasn't been easy. While renovating was under way, the Jutlas" children, Aaron, nine, Madeleine, seven, and Hazel, four, had to share a single bedroom, but, says Chas , "The children have been integral to the project. When the Jutlas bought Sandfield House 10 years ago, they knew they had something of a project on their hands and tried, piecemeal, to renovate small sections at a time. "But then the children started arriving and our energies became dissipated," says Chas, a pilot. Meanwhile, heating the draughty, single-paned, solid-brick house to keep three babies warm was becoming a crippling expense. We were paying £160 a month for gas alone and all I could see were those bills getting higher and higher. We were either going to have to move somewhere cheaper or do something radical. But they loved their cottage with its attached hay barn, despite the crumbling plaster and cold patches. It was structurally sound and had stood for 150 years. Why couldn't we help it stand for 150 more? I know a lot of period homes are inefficient, but what about our heritage? We can't bulldoze them all. The couple hired an architect, chose a builder - "the only one of three we interviewed who 'got" the green thing" - and moved into Thess's parents" house for six months. The children, says Thess, were really excited that their home, always uncomfortably cold, was finally going to have "warm rooms" like their grandparents" house. As well as installing the "power plant" kit - solar hot water and electricity-generating panels, an air-source heat pump and a wood-burning stove, combining old and new technologies - there were profound improvements to the walls, to keep all that lovely heat in. "The old internal plaster was stripped back and we installed high-performance but thin 'space blanket" insulation, with air gaps either side. We lost about three centimetres of internal space all the way around, but it was worth it in terms of the comfort gains," says Chas, who believes that there is "no point" in buying futuristic power-generation kit if you don't get the basics right. Old, inefficient appliances went, and replacements included an induction cooker and a super-efficient fridge costing £15 a year to run. We've had to change our habits. It took a while to adapt to the induction cooker - it's terribly quick - and we put the dishwasher on when the sun comes out to maximise efficiency. Chris Monckton, the project's architect, has built energy-efficient new homes , but never eco-renovated an old one. He believes Sandfield House could be a template for saving period homes: "Inside it is warm, efficient and right up to modern building regulations. On the outside it is an attractive 1870s red-brick cottage. While Sandfield House isn't totally self-sufficient - there wasn't enough roof space for sufficient solar PV panels - Chas envisages upgrading them after about 10 years: "Panel efficiencies are increasing so rapidly that in a few years" time we could be getting much more electricity out of fewer panels." What you need: "Power plant" kit (£21,000). Solar thermal panels, solar PV, heat pump (eco-environments.co.uk); Architect: Chris Monckton (chrismonckton.co.uk). Builder: DMPM Construction (dmpmconstruction.co.uk)