A YORK couple’s home is so well insulated and has so many solar panels it produces more energy than it uses.

The house built by Rob Aitken and Karin de Vries in Fulford is the first in the UK to be certified as ‘Passivhaus Plus’, and the Lord Mayor of York, Cllr Dave Taylor, unveiled a plaque yesterday to mark the achievement.

Karin said it had been stringently modelled on Passivhaus principles to give the house a very low heating requirement through high levels of insulation, high levels of airtightness and triple glazed windows and had 38 solar panels.

“Our house actually makes a profit for us,” she said. “We have no conventional central heating and the mechanical heat recovery recycles most of the heat from the house.

“We bought a second hand plug in hybrid car and on sunny days we are using our own generation from the solar panels to power the car.”