Sustainable wedding barn in Cumbria
Our wedding barn is sympathetically restored using sustainable materials, with as much as possible coming from our farm
Sustainable insulation and limecrete
We had to wait for the right team to restore our barns - traditional skills of walling and working with limecrete and plaster are not for the faint-hearted.
Ceilings: With so many oak timbers and trusses to contend with, insulating and finishing the ceilings was like doing a massive jigsaw puzzle. We needed to get the breathable, sustainable insulation fixed before 2 coats of lime plaster could be applied and finally it had a sponged finish applied to make it look as fantastic as it does today. This was a massive job and took 2 men to do all 80 bays – they worked on in for almost three months.
The team cleaned and repointed all the stonework in the main barn area and set to work on the floors.
Barn flooring in a nutshell: We used an insulating material that is pebbles of recycled glass, then a membrane and layers of limecrete and underfloor heating before local sandstone flags were laid in the barn and ground floor granary.
How did we do the floors? To make it warmer, we dug deep. We also wanted to make sure it was a breathable floor that would soak away water if it ever flooded. One of the other benefits has been that it quickly helped dry out the barn too.
What did we do: It took a while to dig out the concrete and the old sandstone flags (which we reused) then the team lined the barn with a membrane and filled it with tonnes of Glapour – recycled glass that has been burnt – its light and porous – like pumice.
Glapour is an insulating aggregate that is superior insulating glass of the highest quality, using recycled glass. It is also vapour proof and frost proof and combines the structural-physical properties of glass with the insulation properties of a closed cell structure - perfect for limecrete flooring systems. It’s ecological, 100% recycled material, resistant to freeze and thaw, and has excellent thermal resistance too.
Once compressed it had another membrane before the underfloor heating and limecrete were laid. Then, once that was dry, we put the sandstone flags on top.
Local and reclaimed sandstone. We recycled a lot of sandstone from when concrete was dug up in the old byre so we could reuse them on the patio. We also used the old original flags from the barn in the patio area too – it didn’t travel far at all!
The end result in the barn – we have created a very rustic, authentic, traditional floor that will be warm and cosy, even on a cold day.
Insulating the granary
Long Acre Barn was sympathetically restored - here the granary walls were lime plastered
There was a lot to do in the granary -we needed to insulate the walls and then add lime plaster before the new floorboards could be fitted.
We found a super-efficient material to line the walls. It's called #Pavatax - an environmentally friendly, thermal insulation layer that projects against cold in winter and heat in summer. It is also breathable and will protect against noise too. The perfect underlayer for the lime plaster walls.
We think it was worth the wait to create the best barn for environmentally aware brides, looking for a sustainable and different wedding venue. And in winter with the log burner, it’s already been used for meetings and Pilates classes.
