Social Housing

Picture
  • Council House
  • Glastonbury House
  • 225 Court Farm Road

One of the major problems we face today is that, in England and Wales, housing is responsible for about 28% of total CO2. A large majority of these properties are old housing stock many of which were built when there were no building regulations.
 
To achieve adequate space heating a 1930's house is responsible for 4.7 tonnes of CO2. This compares with 0.6 tonnes in current best practice homes. A typical 1976 house, which was the first to encounter thermal regulations, will account for 2.6 tonnes of CO2 for space heating. Taking into account all fittings and appliances as well as the building fabric, a super insulated house with best available technology will produce a total of 2 tonnes of CO2 compared to 8 tonnes in total for a 1930's dwelling.
 
To over come this problem, a solution is to refurbish properties so they meet modern standards.
A sustainable retrofit package for houses could typically consist of:
 
  • Improving the insulation
  • Improving the level of insulation in walls and roof and, where possible, floors
  • Draught proofing
  • Installing Low E double glazing preferably in timber frames
  • Installing/converting central heating to include gas-condensing boilers
  • Installing heat recovery ventilation systems  

Here are a few examples of how existing houses can be refurbished to meet the highest of modern energy efficiency standards:
 
Glastonbury house.
http://www.hkcss.org.hk/fs/Sem0315_05/a.m/westminster.pdf
 
225 Court Farm road – ECD Architects
http://ecda.co.uk/projects/retrofit.htm