Green guru

The national UK target is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from housing by 80 per cent by 2050 implying around 1 million homes are to be built or improved every year. The immediate aim should be to reduce emissions by at least 50 per cent. In the current economic climate that challenge is even greater.

At Jon Broome Architects, we have been working with Greenoak Housing Association on a programme of small developments of new homes to this standard - 12 completed in Storrington, Sussex, and eight with approval in Woking - which now cost no more to construct than most housing association schemes.

Our experiences have shown that from the outset, social housing providers need to do the basic things right to save energy and money. This should be seen as simply part of building good homes and not as extra standards and costs. Integrating this principle into the design process will improve the quality of construction so that buildings perform better. Our experience highlights the need to keep it simple.

To do this, social landlords need to reduce energy consumption first and only consider renewable energy later. With this in mind, it is important to tackle the measures which are difficult to add later, like insulation. Until this is sorted social housing providers should avoid costly and complex systems such as heat pumps, water recycling and photovoltaic panels.

The last government encouraged investment in some of these electricity producing technologies through schemes like the feed-in tariffs. This money would be better spent making improvements elsewhere as small-scale renewable power from wind or photovoltaic panels is not as cost-effective as large-scale wind turbines, biomass and other technologies to provide a low carbon grid. Similarly, it is important to channel investment into a robust and cost-effective outer shell rather than expensive cosmetics such as (environmentally disastrous) copper cladding.

Part of doing the basics right to save money is simply communicating. The UK building industry relies on subcontractors and their performance is critical to achieve cost-effective, high-performance homes. Social housing providers must work in partnership with the building industry and feed back to them in order to improve the sustainable performance of work done. Linked to this is the role of social landlords in interacting with tenants, who will ultimately make a sustainable system cost-effective as they will use the low carbon technology. Before investing across the housing stock, social landlords must evaluate what works and what is a problem for residents as well as monitor energy and water use and evaluate the design and construction process. By doing this, performance will improve at the same time as costs are reduced.

Prioritising the following measures will halve emissions for a new home compared to one built to the government’s building regulations standard - and will not incur additional costs:

• provide as much insulation as you can and fit energy efficient windows;
• make the building airtight to reduce heat loss and the risk of condensation;
• avoid gaps in the insulation, such as where the first floor meets the external walls, which create ‘thermal bridges’;
• install controlled ventilation with heat recovery;
• reduce the demand for hot and cold water by providing water-efficient fittings served by small bore pipework in a compact layout with flow regulation;
• make sure that the heating system is efficient with proper controls including thermostatic radiator valves;
• fit solar hot water panels because heating water will require more energy than heating the house;
• provide good levels of daylight and low energy light fittings to reduce the demand for electricity.

Jon Broome, the founder of Jon Broome Architects and the author of The Green Self Build Book

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