Do we need all of our mains sockets on 240 volts? Can warmth be psychologically affected by the colour of wall paint, and are UPVc windows better than wood?
These are the types of questions Salford University is aiming to answer as it looks to trial new energy efficient technologies in a terrace house built inside a laboratory.
The university has built a 1920s Victorian-style two-up, two-down – thought to represent around 20% of the UK’s housing stock – to test new energy efficient technologies and the behavior of occupants.
The Energy House is a response to the UK’s retrofit challenge. According to statistics released by Communities and Local Government, around 70% of the country's residential property will still be inhabited in 2050 and 91% of all UK homes would benefit substantially from improvements in energy efficiency. Improved insulation and boiler upgrades alone could see heating emissions reduced by 22%.
Despite social housing being seen as a key area to ramp up retrofit activity, the university recently revealed that 50% of Registered Housing Providers do not yet have a retrofit plan.
However, the policy tide is turning, with the Government wanting to leap from the bottom to the top of the European efficiency league. Energy minister Greg Barker, who attended the two-day conference, says that local authorities and housing associations will play a key part in its flagship Green Deal, which will allow tenants and homeowners to pay for energy-efficient improvements through the savings on their energy bills.
Temperature control
Inside the laboratory the university can even change the weather – wind, rain, snow, not the sun, which it will use UV lights to simulate – with temperatures in the environmental chamber able to drop to as low as -6 degrees.
Rain and wind can also hit the house at different speeds, as researchers say that brick’s performance is affected by different conditions. Solar panels will also be fitted on to the tiled roof.
Inspecting the house at its official unveiling at the end of January at the University of Salford Retrofit conference is quite something. All the materials – from the brick to the slate have been reclaimed – except the timbers inside.
Lime mortar has been used to set the familiar red brick, the doors – front and back – don’t shut properly and have gaps exposing drafts, as do the rickety single-glazed sash windows. There are no curtains and the house has no insulation.
“In short,” says energy hub manager Steve Waterworth, “the house is leaking energy.
“We wanted to construct the house as it would have been then and leave it in its rawest form,” he says, “so we can see how it behaves and where the energy goes. We’ll be monitoring temperature, pressure, air flow and humidity and will be producing 3D image maps of each room to see where everything is going.”
The house represents the stock that is the hardest to treat – i.e. no cavity walls with which to pack with insulation.
The university has even built half a house next door so they can monitor the heat output through the party wall. Researchers want to know if tenants have got their heating on high whether they are heating the living room next door.
As well as trialing the relationship between different products and controls within and outside the house, such as double glazed windows, internal/external cladding and insulation, a key part of the analysis and modeling will be the behavior of occupants.
Psychologists will work alongside physicists to study how people use energy. “Hands up who recycled something this week,” asks Mr Waterworth, who turns to delegates on the guided tour? A spate of hands shoot up behind me. “Who’s saved energy this week?” Everybody looks at each with no hands raised. And here in lies one of the challenges. “Ten years ago nobody recycled,” says Waterworth. Now, everybody does. How can we make that work for reducing energy in the home?”
He adds psychologists will also evaluate behaviour in the home. “How would you feel looking at a thermometer giving a warm reading in a cold room? Warm or cold,” asks Mr Waterworth? He says some of the products being trialled include taps that reduce the water pressure, a Dulux reflective paint on the walls, allowing the wattage of light bulbs in the room to be reduced, as light would reflect off the paint. Other products include environmental controls supplier Dyer’s ‘Solis’ system, which controls windows wirelessly using solar power.
The research team intends to trial a number of different types of occupants in the house for around 12 hours at a time, from families to students, single occupants to couples.
Currently, there is a gas boiler in the house but the heating can and will change, depending on what the team wishes to test. Water, electricity and gas will all be monitored as researchers believe that a lot of heat is being lost in the home through hot water.
Green Deal
After a tour of the house Energy minister Greg Barker and I sit in the living room of the terrace to discuss the role of housing associations and tenants in the green deal.
The minister said the “sky is the limit” for housing associations and local authorities to become Green Deal providers themselves – accessing private finance and carrying out the work for tenants – or to form partnerships with utility companies to deliver a roll out.
“Some could not only retrofit their own stock but could provide it to the private rented sector,” he told 24housing magazine. “Housing associations have already taken good steps in bringing their stock up to a decent standard, but we need to get them to go further. The Green Deal will provide them with the finance to do that.”
He also alleviated concerns by those who have pointed out that social tenants often fall out of the Green Deal’s golden rule, i.e. the savings created by the energy efficiency measures have to be greater than the cost of paying for the retrofit over 25 years. This is because such tenants could be classed as fuel poor and won’t be using much energy in the first place.
Mr Barker said: “There will be many homes that won’t be covered by a ‘Pay as you Save model’ e.g. those that are fuel poor, because you can’t make savings on your energy bill if you’re not actually using much in the first place. We recognise that, so in addition to the Green Deal, there will also be an ongoing new energy obligation on utility companies which we believe will be worth well in excess of £1bn per annum and will be rolled out over a decade.”
He also indicated that the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive, which was crucially spared the axe in last year’s spending review, could be used alongside the Green Deal to improve a home’s energy efficiency.
He said: “We are looking at ways when someone has had a Green Deal review of their home, it lists the measures they are able to do. It should also include the opportunities for renewable heat and microgeneration. What we don't want is to put microgeneration or renewable heat technologies into leaky homes. Making your home heat tight first really ought to be the prerequisite before you then go on to the more microgeneration.”
The entire facility at Salford has been geared up to allow the university to knock down the terrace and start again by building another style of property for testing. But for the next three years, we can expect the publication of vital research, says Professor Martin Hall, the university’s vice chancellor. “This project is exciting because retrofitting old properties to make them as carbon-efficient as possible will require detailed and robust research,” he says.
“If there is to be a step change in the UK to achieve our carbon emission reduction targets, it is essential decision-makers have sound evidence to ensure products are tested before being tried out in real homes.”
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