- News
- Magazine
- Awards
- CRC
- Legislation
- Housing
- Renewables
- Non-domestic
- Water
- Energy
- Waste & recyc..
- Refurbishment
- Innovation
- Materials
- Biodiversity
- Interiors
- Books
- Training
- Transport
- Links
- Events
Salford's Energy House project
The house, which will take around three months to build and will then be fitted out as a typical family home, is being constructed to test the energy efficiency of old housing stock.
To ensure the authenticity of the house, ISG, the project’s main contractor, is using a host of reclaimed building materials including timbers, roof tiles and over 20,000 bricks from recently demolished terraced homes in the local area. The contractor will also be adopting traditional construction techniques and skills to create the replica property.
A laboratory is being built next to the house, which will control and monitor the effects of a range of external climatic conditions within the testing chamber, including rain, snow, winds and up to 80% humidity. Researchers will be able to accurately monitor heat loss, domestic energy usage and CO 2 emissions, providing an unrivalled insight into the efficiency of older homes within the UK. To accurately recreate the effect of an adjoining terrace property, ISG is actually building one and a half houses within the sealed chamber.
In addition to academic research, the Energy House will allow engineers, manufacturers, designers, architects, contractors and many other sections of the construction industry, the opportunity to rigorously test the effects of different materials, technologies, techniques and ideas in an infinitely controllable environment.
Designed from the outset with in-built flexibility, various elements of the building can be easily replaced and interchanged, providing highly meaningful real life measurements. For instance, the building will be switchable from a traditional central heating system with a hot water tank to a modern condensing boiler system. Other naturally occurring variables such as missing tiles, blocked chimneys and even a build-up of bird droppings on the roof can also be introduced into experiments to examine their impact on overall environmental performance.
Salford’s groundbreaking project is a response to the sustainability challenge presented by our existing homes. The country’s least efficient properties are predominantly those constructed prior to 1920 and these make up 15% of homes in England but account for 23% of total notional CO 2 emissions, according to data from CLG.
Steve Waterworth, the University of Salford’s Energy House project manager, said: “We estimate that the structure will be finished by October and we then have a four-month programme to fit out both the house and laboratory.
“We aim to be fully operational by the end of January 2011 and will be presenting the first tranche of Energy House data at the UK’s first conference dedicated to the issue of sustainability and retrofitting, being held at the University, in January.”
This event will take place on 26th and 27th of January and further details will be released later this year.
Search related articles
