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Future homes today

Posted by Catherine Deshayes on Wednesday, June 03, 2009

‘Insite09 Constructing the Future,' a showcase of sustainability and innovation in the built environment, opened on Monday and runs through Thursday, 4th June. Hosted by the BRE at its north Watford HQ, several housebuilders were onsite to introduce the homes of the future, low carbon prototype houses and buildings, which are a semi-permanent feature at the BRE, to a professional audience - eco-guru and founder of WhatGreenHome.com Gordon Miller visited Insite09 to get a glimpse of the homes of tomorrow being built today...

Housebuilders and developers introducing low and in some cases zero carbon homes included Barratt and Kingspan. The Renewable House, developed by a consortium of parties, was launched at the event. The three-bedroom house is designed to meet Code Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH), with a design capability to be upgraded to levels 5 and 6, at a build cost of only £75,000.

Housebuilder Stewart Milne utilised the event to launch a report of its occupancy findings at its Sigma prototype house, situated on the BRE Innovation Park. The house, which was constructed in 2007/08, was built to CSH level 5. It was conceived by the housebuilder as a "road test" to learn key performance standards during construction and occupancy, with a view to being rolled out as a commercial model.

Stewart Dalgarno, Director of Product Development, Stewart Milne Group, said, "The findings, based on a family of four living in the house for four two week periods, it's fair to say have been mixed. While the house is two-thirds more energy efficient than a normal house, the heat loss is approximately 40 per cent higher than was predicted at design stage.

"There are several learning outcomes we can take from the experience. Firstly, the occupiers need to be trained to get the maximum benefits from the technology. Secondly, for a number of reasons the microrenewable technologies (wind and photovoltaic) installed underperformed, and the building fabric did not perform as expected. Critically, we have taken onboard the conclusions to develop the Sigma II house."

The Sigma II has a superior fabric performance, suitable for projects up to four storeys high, seeking to achieve CSH Levels 4, 5 and 6 (the highest). Based on the experience, the Stewart Milne Group has concluded that the building fabric is key to a highly energy efficient performance. It further concludes that the occupants' needs should be at the heart of how one builds and designs low carbon homes for the future.

The need for homeowners' buy-in to a low carbon culture was the theme of the address by Philip Sellwood, Chief Executive of the Energy Saving Trust (EST), in the ‘Climate Change' conference on day one. He said, "The EST is a champion for low carbon. We need a mass-market solution, based on the benefits and not the features of low carbon homes, to encourage the public to adopt a low carbon lifestyle that will be of benefit to themselves as well as the climate."

Jonathon Porritt, Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, speaking at the Climate Change conference, argued that the only way to avert climate change catastrophe is through legislation. "We simply don't have time to change people's behaviour sufficiently to make the required impact; it is only through the process of our politicians legislating that significant change can be made quickly enough."

Mr Porritt said that on the whole the Code for Sustainable Homes legislation is a good model that must be adopted for commercial buildings too. Praising the new US Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, while lamenting the UK government's missed opportunities and contradictory climate change messages, he said, "Steve Chu is right when he says ‘Energy efficiency is at the heart of the low carbon story'."

Exhibitors at the Insite09 event included PRP Architects, which has designed several sustainable residential and commercial, social and private developments for its clients worldwide. And Zedfactory, which has created a zero carbon, timber frame kit house. Bill Dunster, the lead architect at Zedfactory, designed the award winning, low carbon operational community BedZED in Wallington, Surrey.

CONTACTS:

Insite09

www.insite09.com

BedZED

www.bioregional.com/programme_projects/ecohous_prog/bedzed/bedzed_hpg.htm

PRP Architects

www.prparchitects.co.uk

Renewable House

www.renewable-house.co.uk

Stewart Milne Group

www.stewartmilne.com

Zedfactory

www.zedfactory.com

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