How energy-efficient are Charlbury homes?

Fri 24 Mar 2023, 19:53

34 squid = cheapskate (sic) investment ! No chance of an infra-red analysis of hotspots surely.

I paste in below an entire copy of an article off the New Scientist magazine. I'm a subscriber so this might not be available generally to outsiders, hence entire pasting in. Its worth the read.

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Green home designs put to the test in giant climate-controlled chamber

Roof-mounted heat pumps and heat-harvesting showers are among the green home technologies being put through their paces in a research facility in Manchester, UK

Homes being tested inside the Energy House 2.0 climate-controlled chamber

A snow machine creates wintry conditions inside the Energy House chamber where home technologies are being tested in Manchester, UK

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

On a late winter’s day in Manchester, UK, the sky is a steely grey and the air temperature hovers shy of 10°C (50°F). But as I step inside the University of Salford’s latest state-of-the-art research building, the freezing 3°C (37°F) air bites immediately.

No, the heating system in this brand-new block hasn’t malfunctioned. In fact, this sleek hangar is a giant climate-controlled chamber, designed to test how homes built today will cope with the wilder weather climate change promises for the future.

The £16-million chamber is an “engineering masterclass”, says Richard Fitton, who leads the Energy House 2.0 project for the university. It is hermetically sealed off from the outside world – even the earth itself is separated from outside soil by thick layers of insulation.

Inside, researchers can create any weather they want with the touch of a button, from –20°C (–4°F) chills to 40°C (104°F) heatwaves, alongside gale force winds, rain, snow and ice. “We can cover 95 per cent of the globally populated landmass – anywhere generally where people live, we can recreate those conditions,” says Fitton.

Nestled rather incongruously inside this industrial hangar are two new-build homes, complete with neat brickwork and pot plants flanking their front doors. Both are kitted out with cutting-edge green technologies, such as heat pumps, batteries and electric vehicle charging points, and will act as test beds for housebuilders facing new regulations to build greener homes in the UK.

Campaigners have been arguing for decades that new homes should be climate-friendly, but most housebuilders have resisted radical change. One concern is the cost of running a greener home – heat pumps can be more expensive to run than gas boilers, for example. “A low-carbon home isn’t necessarily a low-running-cost home,” says Jamie Bursnell from developer Bellway Homes.

Build costs are also a worry. Climate-friendly homes could cost 20 per cent more to build than standard-issue properties. That could push house prices up and land values down, developers warn.

New standards

But with regulation imminent, housebuilders are under pressure to change. In 2025, the Future Homes Standard (FHS) will come into force in England, requiring all new homes to be built without gas central heating and with other green measures such as extra insulation. Homes built to the FHS must deliver a 75 to 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions, compared to homes built today.Wales and Northern Ireland have already introduced similar rules, and even higher standards are being proposed in Scotland.

That is why Bellway has built the Future Home, a three-bedroom detached house from its Coppersmith range of homes, inside the Energy House 2.0. It already builds thousands of Coppersmith homes each year across the UK, and the challenge is to figure out how to adapt this model, and others from its existing range of homes, to meet the FHS.

Read more:

Energy price cap means now might be the best time to green your home

Inside, the Future Home is a near-perfect replica of a Coppersmith in the real world, complete with a modern kitchen-diner and a living room decked out with throw pillows and mood lighting. Yet as Bursnell gives me a tour, it is clear that this is no ordinary new-build. For one thing, packed inside are three different heating systems: two air source heat pumps (including the UK’s first roof-mounted pump), plus infrared panel heaters dotted around the walls and ceilings. There is also a feed for roof-mounted solar power, a battery in the loft and a smart hot water tank that heats water using excess solar generation.

Over the coming months, Bellway will test different combinations of these technologies – both virtually and with the help of overnight house guests – to find the most cost-effective, scalable way of meeting the FHS regulations. Some of the technologies, such as the eco-shower that re-uses heat from used water, sound promising, but it isn’t clear how much money they could save homeowners. For other gadgets, it isn’t clear how user-friendly they are. The infrared radiator panels, for example, are scalding to the touch during my visit, prompting concerns about their safety for use in a household with young children.

Yet financially, at least, things are looking promising: based on calculations of its energy performance, Bellway says its Future Home could have energy bills of just £11 a year.

Benchmark for the future

Next door, things get even more radical. The focus for the eHome2, a partnership between developers Saint-Gobain and Barratt, was to cut the carbon emissions from construction. Instead of energy-intensive bricks, the walls are made from lower-carbon insulated panels with a brickwork veneer, while the floors are pre-insulated slabs. Inside, the gadgets are plentiful: a smart home system controls everything from music to bathroom lighting. It can lower blinds automatically on a hot day, charge an electric vehicle when power is cheap and turn lights off in unoccupied rooms.

The eHome2 is a step beyond the FHS, says Tom Cox of Saint-Gobain, more like a “concept car” than a model home. “The idea is we learn a lot by building this, and somewhere between what we are building today and this will be the benchmark for the future,” he says.

The day I visit an electric vehicle outside the eHome2 is dusted with snow. But harsher conditions are to come. Official testing starts later this month, after which the houses will be put through their paces to see how they perform in winter storms and summer heat.

Read more:

Could your home be net zero carbon? The radical plan to make it happen

Most excitingly, researchers will be able to test them in the UK’s future climate. “We can take those houses and we can see if they work in 2023,” says Fitton. “But we can then cycle through the climate change predictions that we have got for 2030, 2050, 2080… We get to cycle those buildings 50 years into the future and see if we are getting any problems.”

A home built today could well be standing in 100 years. That means we must build properties that are not only fit for net zero, but can also cope with a wilder, wetter and warmer future climate. With Energy House 2.0 now up and running, housebuilders have no excuse not to deliver.

“This is putting a house under a microscope,” says Fitton. “It’s doing a deep dive. Because when you have the ability to control the climate, you can do anything.”

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