Leading by examples – retrofitting all types of social housing – part two

Posted on May 24, 2023 by jamescarson2014

By Ian Babelon

In the first part of two blog posts, published on 22 May, Ian Babelon provided examples of good practice in retrofitting social housing. The second part of this blog post looks at estate-wide and area-wide social housing retrofits.

Introduction

Upscaling social housing retrofits requires learning from individual property retrofits and wider retrofitting programmes. With numbers comes greater complexity. As capacity grows, opportunities for partnerships provide new opportunities to embed retrofit programmes in wider sectoral and place-based strategies. This post considers the role of estate-wide and area-wide social housing retrofits, including how these can benefit from tenant engagement for healthy, inclusive placemaking.

Estate-wide retrofits

Low-carbon retrofitting measures on Lancaster West Estate at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea have included Energiesprong whole house retrofits at 38 homes, energy-efficiency measures at 367 homes across seven blocks, and testing mechanical ventilation heat recovery systems. The latest measure is the fully carbon-neutral retrofit at Treadgold House. Other measures have included public realm and safety improvements. Along with the extensive resident engagement, the estate has witnessed a deep one-of-a-kind transformation.

However, estate-wide retrofits can be difficult to plan and deliver to a high energy-efficiency standard due to the large up-front costs involved. A mix of whole-house retrofits, fabric-first approaches, redevelopment of poorly designed buildings, and essential scheduled upgrades might be preferable, depending on the context and the heavy cost of building safety compliance.

The acclaimed Passivhaus redevelopment of Agar Grove in Camden, based on the masterplan by Hawkins\Brown, features a mix of solutions that make the estate-wide regeneration more affordable for both the council and residents. These include new council homes, refurbished flats, affordable rental housing, and homes for sale, enabling a tall order of 496 new homes to be delivered in six phases. Besides providing much-needed quality homes to many, the project also acts an exemplar for social and affordable housing in the UK and beyond.

Area-wide programmes

From being an early adopter of the Energiesprong approach to the Deep Retrofit Energy Model (DREeM), enabling energy-efficient retrofits to dozens of social homes, Nottingham City Homes have been among the first in the UK to develop neighbourhood-wide retrofits. Nottingham City Council even tested the innovative use of Low Temperature District Heating along with whole house retrofits for 94 homes in Sneinton, which proved more complex than initially expected.

In Scotland, the Renfrewshire retrofit programme aims for EnerPHit or AECB Retrofit Standard for up to 3,500 homes across eight neighbourhoods. The initiative is part of a £100m housing-led regeneration programme across the local authority. Renfrewshire Council was selected as Social Landlord of the Year 2022 by the Retrofit Academy for its clear strategy to deliver large-scale housing decarbonisation, adopt the PAS2035 framework wherever possible, and for its proactive engagement of residents throughout the programme.

Other noteworthy programmes include whole house retrofits for 150 council-owned flats on the Holt Dale Estate in Leeds, reaching EPC rating A, benefitting residents who were living in fuel poverty. The 3 Cities Retrofit programme is worth following up as it has the potential to retrofit up to 165,000 social homes across the Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton City Councils.

In France, 14 housing associations in Brittany have partnered to leverage the Energiesprong approach for an initial stock of 2,000 social homes, with a potential to extend the experience to 16,000 social homes. In the north of France, the housing association Maison et Cités selected hemp concrete as the most effective material for a progressive roll-out of fabric-first retrofits to 20,000 homes in the former mining region. Both area-wide retrofit approaches were part-funded by the French public investment agency Banque des Territoires.

Upscaling tenant engagement

Residents should be onboard from day one of their property’s retrofit, but they can also actively contribute to wider retrofit programmes. Insight from the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury report (2021) and the Resident Voices in the Net Zero Carbon Journey report both point to the need to educate and actively involve residents from the planning phase to supporting sustainable lifestyles.

One year on, these needs were felt even more acutely in the build-up to COP26. Critically, residents have expressed that perceived contradictions in council-led environmental strategies such as recycling can have knock-on effects on how they perceive the value and effectiveness of retrofits. This implies that efforts toward improving energy-efficiency and reducing waste should be consistent.

Resident-led and national initiatives have included community gardening and the Incredible Edible network. These can provide additional involvement opportunities as well as quality food and care for the neighbourhood. The demand for greener urban spaces, biodiversity and access to wildlife also came strongly in a related report by Orbit and the Chartered Institute of Housing. Initiatives that upscale tenant engagement include recruiting tenants as board members (at Connect Housing) or embedding tenant involvement in the housing provider’s sustainability strategy (at Notting Hill Genesis).

Providers can also encourage residents to contribute to the Together with Tenants Charter led by the National Housing Federation. The organisation Tpas and partners have shared tenant engagement guidance for ALMOs and housing associations that will be useful in seeking to upscale social housing retrofits. In addition, there has been a recent ministerial push encouraging tenants to voice their concerns more readily, and therefore to exercise scrutiny over what may be dismal housing conditions.

Final thoughts

Collaboration and cross-sectoral partnerships underpinned by active tenant engagement seem essential to deliver large retrofit programmes while hedging against otherwise deterring risks. Exemplars, in turn, help build a greater ‘can do’ attitude and know-how for the wider housing and property sectors on the road to net zero, including area-wide retrofits.

Ian Babelon is a UX Researcher in Idox.

New life for old homes: the potential of retrofitting social housing

Posted on April 17, 2023 by jamescarson2014

by Ian Babelon

How can social housing retrofits help tackle the cost-of-living and climate crises that are currently exercising the minds of landlords, householders, tenants and governments? In this, blog post, Ian Babelon looks at the potential of retrofits for making homes more energy efficient and for futureproofing the built environment.

The benefits and costs of retrofitting

Around 38% of all homes in the UK were built before 1946. As a result, the UK’s housing stock is not only the oldest, but among the most poorly insulated in Europe, leading to higher energy bills and a lower quality of life. At the same time, UK homes account for over 66m tonnes of direct carbon emissions, undermining government decarbonisation efforts.

On many different levels, making Britain’s housing more energy efficient makes sense. Estimates by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) suggest households could save £220-400 in energy bills per year. In addition, retrofitting homes can address fuel poverty, provide decent homes, reduce public health costs, and help deliver decarbonisation targets.

But energy efficiency requires investment. Insight shared by the Greener Futures Partnership shows that it could cost between £13,000 and £25,000 to bring a social home to EPC (energy performance certificate) band C. This does not take into account training and skills requirements to retrofit homes, nor the significant variations in property condition, fabric type, fluctuating costs of construction materials, retrofit design choices, scheduling of renovation works, and availability of construction labour with the right skills. Retrofitting social homes at scale therefore requires working on multiple fronts at the same time.

The cost of not retrofitting

The 2022 Cost of Living Crisis in Scotland report by the Scottish Government shows that as many as 35% of households in Scotland may be fuel poor. In England, figures for 2022 by DENSZ indicate that fuel poverty affects 13.4% of households.

The consequences of fuel poverty are wide-ranging. The annual cost of treating health conditions associated with cold, damp homes in England amounts to £1.3 billion. Poor housing also affects mental health, can impair children’s learning opportunities, and puts older people at greater risk of strokes and other severe health conditions.

A 2021 National Housing Federation report showed that the UK’s social rented sector has made great progress in tackling fuel poverty (64.3% of housing association homes already have an EPC rating of C or above). But the study also underlined how much more needs to be done. An additional £36bn of investment is required, said the report, to bring the remaining 39% of housing association homes up to a C rating, as well as installing heat pumps and other clean heat technologies in all 2.7 million homes.

Financing challenges and solutions

Social landlords also face significant costs for remediation and building safety improvements that hamper their efforts to retrofit homes and meet national energy efficiency targets. As DESNZ rolls out the second wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, the NHF has called for long-term funding certainty so retrofits can pick up the pace.

Fortunately, more financing opportunities are becoming available for social landlords looking to make their properties more energy efficient, as reported in a report by the Green Finance Institute. These include local climate bonds, leaseholder finance and insurance-backed ‘comfort plans’, such as the Energiesprong approach, which can pay for insulation measures with energy and maintenance savings.

Fabric first…

It pays to insulate homes before investing in complementary measures such as renewable energy generation or smart technologies. This ‘fabric-first’ approach is an attractive alternative to the large up-front investment costs for deep, ‘whole-house’ retrofits that may be prohibitive for social housing landlords.

Incremental retrofit approaches can combine initial fabric improvement with scheduled upgrades, such as replacing gas with energy-efficient electric heating and hot water, installing air-source heat pumps (ASHP) or introducing smart home devices.

Strategic planning is essential to avoid piecemeal interventions that might prove more costly and less effective over time. The Social Housing Retrofits for the Future report commissioned by the Greener Futures Partnership highlights the need for cross-sectoral collaboration to tackle technical, financial, legal and customer engagement requirements simultaneously by providing extensive evidence from across Europe and the UK.

LETI, a volunteer network of over 1,000 built environment professionals, has published a Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide for use by social housing landlords, designers and contractors. The guide provides an engaging infographic overview as well as guidance for a range of home archetypes.

… Or building from scratch

Are all poorly performing homes worth retrofitting? So-called ‘hard-to-treat’ and ‘hard-to-decarbonise’ homes (about 2% of all social homes) can be very costly to upgrade. LETI provides a decision aid to determine whether one should retrofit or build anew, to be used in conjunction with other guidance.

A key aspect of this decision is to differentiate between embodied carbon (carbon emitted in making construction materials and during actual construction) and operational carbon (emissions produced during occupancy). All things considered, it is usually more worthwhile to renovate and reuse homes than to knock them down and redevelop them.

Beyond retrofitting

As performance increases to meet sector-wide energy-efficiency targets, designing for and monitoring air tightness will become increasingly important to help achieve decarbonisation.

High-performance standards such as Passivhaus ENERPHit are premised on sound air tightness and ventilation to guarantee thermal comfort while reducing energy costs. The Passivhaus Trust provides resources and case studies to help councils, ALMOs and housing associations deliver energy-efficient retrofits and new builds, along with a recent evidence-based research report that makes the case for whole-house, low-carbon retrofits.

The next frontier for retrofitting social housing at scale lies in neighbourhood-wide retrofits that could appeal even more to green finance but would require commensurate public-private partnerships and coordination.

Final thoughts

Overall, retrofitting social housing is a win-win for everyone involved. It is good for the environment, the economy, and the people who live in social housing. The up-front costs can be substantial, but the long-term benefits should make these investments cost-effective.

The social housing sector has clearly been taking action to deliver more energy efficient homes, and it’s working with residents, contractors, local authorities and other stakeholders to ensure that the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund succeeds.

Challenges remain, notably concerns about skills shortages. But the prize of warmer homes, affordable energy, a better quality of life and a cleaner planet is well worth the effort of overcoming these obstacles.

Ian Babelon, UX Researcher, Idox

A longer version of this article is available for subscribers to The Knowledge Exchange Information Service. To retrieve it from our online database, use the reference number: B67199.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Guest post: insulate Britain or miss net zero

Posted on July 25, 2022 by jamescarson2014

Jack Marley, The Conversation

The UK is failing to enact the policies that would put it on track to reach net zero emissions by 2050, according to a progress report by the Climate Change Committee. The head of this expert body, which advises the government on its climate strategy, described the UK’s record on home insulation in particular as “a complete tale of woe”.

Gas heating in draughty homes is one of the country’s biggest sources of carbon emissions – and a leading cause of poor health and poverty as energy prices remain sky-high. So what would it take to turn this around?

“The transition to net zero emissions is often framed as a race to make new stuff – such as electric vehicles and wind turbines – as fast as possible,” says Ran Boydell, a visiting lecturer in sustainable development at Heriot-Watt University.

“That’s actually the easy part. The hard part will be modifying what already exists – and that includes people’s homes.”

Cavity wall insulation, triple-glazed windows, solar panels, low-carbon heating systems such as heat pumps which run on electricity: all of these things and potentially more are needed to neutralise the contributions to climate change made by 26 million homes (the number of existing homes Boydell anticipates will still be around in 2050). That would eliminate 68 million tonnes of CO₂, which is about 15% of the national total.

“The idea is to ensure that no home emits greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels for energy and that, eventually, each home could produce as much energy as it uses,” Boydell says.

According to analysis by the Climate Change Committee, the average cost of retrofitting a single home to net zero standard is £26,000. Energy savings would make up for this after 20 years, but most households would struggle to make such a big upfront investment.

“Considering energy efficiency measures purely in terms of financial payback will never stack up,” Boydell says. “They must be considered in terms of carbon payback. Carbon payback is how quickly the reduced carbon emissions from daily life in a net zero home take to make up for the carbon emissions that went into making and building all the different parts.”

A home operating at net zero standard would compensate for the carbon that went into building it after just six years, Boydell estimates. But it’s the responsibility of the government – and not individual homeowners – to juggle these considerations, he says.

“Infrastructure, like roads and railways, is the only stuff people build which counts its payback periods in decades. The government needs to think of a mass retrofit programme for our houses in those terms: as critical national infrastructure.”

Fund, regulate and overhaul

Matthew Hannon and Donal Brown study green policy at the universities of Strathclyde and Sussex. They say that:

“At an absolute minimum, the government should be aiming to install insulation in 1.3 million homes a year – a rate it managed pre-2013.”

To reach that level, Hannon and Brown have four suggestions. First, increase annual funding for retrofitting homes from £1 billion to £7 billion – enough to retrofit 7 million homes by 2025, they claim. Next, shift the burden of raising this money into general taxation and away from energy bill levies which strain the poorest households and inflate the cost of heating homes with zero-carbon electricity.

“Insulating hundreds of homes at a time, neighbourhood by neighbourhood and coordinated by local authorities, could help to retrofit housing deeper and faster than tackling homes one by one,” they say. For this, collaboration with local groups and businesses who know the community well will be key. Hannon and Brown argue the government will also need a separate, well-funded programme to install heat pumps and other low-carbon heating systems, while phasing out support for gas boilers.

An engineer adjusts the external fan unit of a heat pump on the side of a house. — Heat pumps, if powered by renewable electricity, can decarbonise heating. I AM NIKOM/Shutterstock

Once a national campaign to renovate Britain’s homes to net zero standard is underway, there are certain to be teething problems. The Labour Party offered a comprehensive programme of home insulation at the 2019 election. At the time, Jo Richardson, a professor of housing and social inclusion at De Montfort University, and David Coley, a professor of low-carbon design at the University of Bath, described the obstacles that will need to be overcome.

“The UK construction sector is highly fragmented – and different subcontractors are often responsible for the walls, roof and electricity in a single house. This makes quality control difficult. There’s also a skills shortage, especially when it comes to the detailed knowledge required to build a zero-energy house. And if energy-consuming extras such as underfloor heating or electrically driven windows are added, the energy savings from design may be lost,” they say.

The Climate Change Committee noted that new homes are rarely net zero standard, with 1.5 million built in recent years that will need to be retrofitted. The preferred solution for Richardson and Coley is to mandate each new home to Passivhaus standard, which certifies that it produces as much energy as it uses.

“Passivhaus only works if the right design decisions are made from day one,” they caution. “If an architect starts by drawing a large window for example, then the energy loss from it might well be so great that any amount of insulation elsewhere can’t offset it. Architects don’t often welcome this intrusion of physics into the world of art.”

Increased funding, new regulations and an overhaul of architectural norms will be necessary to roll out zero-energy homes and retrofit existing ones. “That’s a tall order,” say Richardson and Coley. “But decarbonising each component of society will take nothing short of a revolution.”

Jack Marley, Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Further reading: more on energy efficiency from The Knowledge Exchange blog

Co-housing: the promises and the pitfalls

Posted on June 6, 2022 by jamescarson2014

Over the past two years, the coronavirus pandemic and the cost of living crisis have eclipsed the UK’s chronic housing shortage. But the housing challenges of 2019 are still with us in 2022, and in many ways they have worsened. According to the housing charity Shelter, over 17 million people are living in overcrowded, dangerous, unstable or unaffordable housing.

There’s no single solution to Britain’s housing emergency. But one idea that’s gaining increasing attention is co-housing.

A London School of Economics report has given a good definition of co-housing:

“A co-housing group is formed by a community of people typically with similar needs and interests. Co-housing is owned by the group and usually contains private rooms or houses with communal areas such as living rooms and kitchens, where people will come together to share meals and spend time together. The residents are responsible for the management and maintenance of the site, and they are run in a non-hierarchical way, giving all residents an equal say in how they are organised.”

The modern co-housing movement began in Denmark in the 1970s, and has since spread to other European countries, including Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. There is now a growing number of co-housing projects in the UK, and although these are small in scale, they are pointing the way to alternative models of housing, and also to addressing other social issues, such as isolation and loneliness.

The promises of co-housing

The proponents of co-housing suggest that it has multiple benefits for residents:

affordability: by pooling resources such as cooking, childcare, and household expenses, co-housing residents can cut costs;
security: co-housing provides safe spaces for residents to live and socialise;
sustainability: sharing resources increases efficiency and reduces waste;
community: co-housing residents make decisions together, and co-housing can also reduce the chances of isolation.

The multiple faces of co-housing

There is no single template for co-housing. Some projects have a mixture of generations, singles, couples and families, while others focus on the needs of particular communities. In the United States, intergenerational co-housing projects have brought together retired people, families and foster children. Another scheme, in Berlin, has been designed for older gay men, but also welcomes older lesbian women, trans and inter persons, as well as younger LGBTQ+ people.

In 2016, the UK’s first co-housing project for older women opened in Barnet, north London. The New Ground scheme has been successful in developing a mutually supportive community of women over the age of 50. In addition, New Ground has worked to encourage policy makers, planners and housing associations to recognise the social and economic benefits of co-housing, and to respond to the demand that exists for senior co-housing.

Because co-housing is often seen as being reserved for communities who are affluent and predominantly white, Housing 21, a leading provider of retirement properties for older people, has recently launched a co-housing initiative with a focus on older Black and Asian people of modest financial means.

Tackling isolation: how co-housing can address loneliness

The communal nature of co-housing makes it a natural fit for people who are isolated and lonely. This was one of the themes of a recent webinar hosted by Housing LIN. One of the participants was Kath Scanlon, a researcher from the London School of Economics, who highlighted her work exploring the links between loneliness and participation in community-led housing.

Kath’s research has underlined the importance of social connection with neighbours and sharing spaces with others as ways of preventing loneliness:

“Broadly, we found that the most tight-knit places, where members knew and trusted each other most, performed best as supportive communities… Emotional loneliness was countered by fostering meaningful relationships and ‘belonging’ through physical proximity, sharing similar values, a reciprocal commitment and care, looking out for and supporting each other.”

A resident’s perspective

One of the most engaging and powerful contributions to the Housing LIN webinar came from Alison Cahn, who has been a resident at Lancaster Cohousing scheme since 2012.

Alison was one of the first residents of the scheme, which is an intergenerational co-housing community of households in the village of Halton, three miles from Lancaster in the North West of England.

The Lancaster scheme was designed by the people who live there. It consists of private homes, community facilities and shared outdoor space. Shared facilities include a laundry, food store and a car share scheme.

As Alison explained, the scheme is an eco-housing community, designed to make sustainable living easy. The homes are built to Passivhaus standards, which means they use about 15% of the energy to heat compared to conventional housing. Electricity comes from the scheme’s own microgrid. And if Alison needs anything, from a drill to a tent, she can borrow it from her neighbours. Overall, the scheme is estimated to save around 540 tonnes of CO2 every year (a single tonne of CO2 is equivalent to a 500 m3 hot air balloon).

Alison also highlighted the social aspects of co-housing. The scheme has been designed to enable residents to meet and interact. As well as sharing facilities, the residents get involved in communal activities, such as art, camping and wild swimming. They also work together and make decisions on the future development of the scheme.

Alison watched her mother grow old alone, and was determined that this shouldn’t happen to her. She feels supported by her neighbours, something that was especially important when her husband fell ill. Alison also spoke very movingly about another resident called Roger, who found support from the co-housing community in the final weeks of his life. As she explained: “Roger said he came to this co-housing scheme to die, but he didn’t. He actually came here to live.”

The pitfalls of co-housing

While Alison was keen to stress the attractions of co-housing, she also described the challenges. “Different people need different levels of social connections. Not everyone is keen to spend much time with their neighbours, and some prefer their privacy.” While decisions are taken together, reaching a consensus can take time, with general meetings sometimes getting heated. “Some bitter conflicts have fractured relationships, and some people have left.”

And although co-housing can reduce isolation, some residents have the impression that it will solve all their problems – “We’re neighbours, not carers or psychotherapists.”

Final thoughts

As things stand, co-housing schemes in the UK are too small to tackle the enormous challenges of the country’s housing shortage. But existing schemes demonstrate the great potential of this model of housing. And with more support from housing associations and local authorities, co-housing in the UK could really take off.

It was thanks to an imaginative collaboration between Hanover Housing Association and the Older Women’s Co-Housing group that the New Ground co-housing scheme became a reality. The housing association financed purchase of the land and construction of the properties, and the homes were presold or pre-let by the co-housing group before construction started.

Co-housing isn’t for everyone. It requires commitment from residents to participate in the management of a scheme, and to sacrifice some of their privacy for the benefit of their neighbours. This model of housing presents particular challenges, some of which might be hard to overcome. But the rewards of co-housing can be substantial.

Or, as Alison Cahn puts it: “When it works, it’s awesome.”

Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

Further reading: more on housing from The Knowledge Exchange Blog

Is this the future of social housing?

Posted on January 27, 2020 by jamescarson2014

Goldsmith Street: Mikhail Riches / Tim Crocker 2019

Last year, a development of 105 homes on the outskirts of Norwich became the first social housing project to win the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize.

The Goldsmith Street estate was built by London architecture firm Mikhail Riches for Norwich City Council, and is the largest Passivhaus scheme in the UK. Passivhaus is an approach to building that provides a high level of occupant comfort while using very little energy for heating and cooling.

Goldsmith Street has been carefully thought through, and adjusted to take account of changing economic and environmental circumstances. In 2008, Norwich City Council selected Mikhail Riches to design the estate. The council had intended to sell the site to a local housing provider, but when the financial crash happened, the council decided to develop the site itself.

The architects have striven to ensure that the development acknowledges the historic context of the site:

“The design seeks to re-introduce streets and houses in an area of the city which is otherwise dominated by 20th century blocks of flats… Street widths are intentionally narrow at 14m, emulating the 19th century model.”

The homes themselves have been built to strict Passivhaus standards which include:

very high levels of insulation;
extremely high performance windows with insulated frames;
airtight building fabric;
‘thermal bridge free’ construction;
a mechanical ventilation system with highly efficient heat recovery.

Passivhaus standards typically reduce heating energy consumption by up to 90% as compared to traditional housing. For residents in the Goldsmith Street development, heating bills should be about £150 a year.

Eco friendly housing

In recent years, local authorities and housing associations have been responding to the increasing demands for housing stock to have lower maintenance costs, lower energy costs and fewer emissions of carbon and other gases that can be harmful to the environment and human health.

The Passivhaus Trust has highlighted a growing number of local councils and housing associations that have been exploring Passivhaus standards as a way of tackling these issues.

One of the most ambitious social housing Passivhaus projects is Agar Grove in the London Borough of Camden. Previously a 1960s estate with an unenviable reputation, Agar Grove has been rebuilt with affordable and energy efficient homes. The first phase, involving 38 social rented homes was completed in 2018, and has already won awards for sustainability and community consultation. Once complete, the 500-home estate will be the largest Passivhaus development in the UK.

Cunningham House, Glasgow: Page\Park Architects

In Glasgow, the city’s first Passivhaus development for social rent was opened by Shettleston Housing Association in September 2019. The project provides nineteen new homes for older people in an innovative design that combines a five storey Passivhaus tower with a converted church building. All of the homes benefit from high levels of thermal insulation to augment the sandstone coat of the existing church structure. The project was named the best affordable housing development at the 2019 Inside Housing Awards.

Meanwhile, the City of York Council has released plans to build more than 600 homes across eight sites over the next five years that will be built to carbon zero standards. The council has pledged that 40% of the homes will be affordable, with 20% retained for social renting. The developments, also designed by Mikhail Riches, will have very high energy efficiency standards that exceed standard Passivhaus levels. It’s predicted that residents’ heating bills could be around £60 a year.

Homes for the future

There is a now a growing sense that housing, as well as consuming great amounts of energy, can also be a positive force for change. Energy efficient homes can make a strong contribution to climate change adaptation measures, can make housing more resilient to increasingly common extreme weather events, and can provide opportunities to improve economic development, quality of life and social equality.

In the past year, with many local councils, combined authorities, devolved administrations and the UK government declaring ‘climate emergencies’, the pressure on housing providers to lead by example has intensified. At the same time, governments are setting out plans to ensure new homes are more energy efficient.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is currently consulting on the Future Homes Standard, which includes proposals to increase energy efficiency requirements for new homes from 2025. Similarly, the Scottish Government plans to introduce new regulations to ensure all new homes use renewable or low carbon heating from 2024. A 2019 report commissioned by the Welsh Government has recommended major changes to most homes in the country, including a major programme to improve insulation and heating.

Goldsmith Street: Mikhail Riches / Tim Crocker 2019

The success and widespread publicity enjoyed by the Goldsmith Street project is likely to encourage other local authorities and housing associations to explore the possibilities of Passivhaus. But although the benefits are great, Passivhaus also presents significant challenges for housing providers.

Up-front costs are higher for Passivhaus developments, and there are additional maintenance and replacement costs. The technical requirements are strict, in order to ensure the maximum levels of airtightness and insulation. In addition, there is a shortage of skills needed to achieve the exceptional standards of construction demanded by Passivhaus (Norwich City Council has overcome this by bringing together a network of specialist contractors with the necessary expertise to work on Passivhaus projects).

Despite the challenges, Passivhaus seems to be offering a compelling answer to the significant problems of fuel poverty, climate change and the demand for high quality, affordable housing. As more local authorities and housing associations demonstrate its affordability, Passivhaus is breaking away from its image as a resource for the privileged and moving into the mainstream of social housing.

Further reading: blog posts from The Knowledge Exchange on energy efficiency at home

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What next for energy efficient homes?

Posted on April 26, 2016 by jamescarson2014

Guest post, by Dr Alina Congreve, Centre for Cities, University of Hertfordshire, and
Dr Dan Greenwood, University of Westminster

The controversy surrounding the scrapping of the zero carbon target for new homes continues, despite its removal by the government in July 2015. The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee report, published in March 2016, was highly critical of the government’s approach to energy efficiency and housing. There has also been a strong reaction to the closure of the Zero Carbon Hub at the end of March. The Hub was widely regarded as an exemplary model of collaboration between government, industry and third sector.

Critics of the government’s approach to new housing policy point out that the initial drivers behind the zero carbon target have not gone away. European requirements that all new buildings are ‘nearly zero’ energy by 2021 are still in place. The Climate Change Act requires a fall in emissions of 80% by 2050 (from a 2006 baseline). Given the limits to reduction from retrofitting existing buildings, emissions reductions from new build need to be even higher.

There is a widespread view within the sector that the most effective way to achieve energy efficient new homes is through regulation, supported by appropriate tools and training developed in collaboration with the industry. For planners working in local authorities, the options for requiring developers to go beyond the Building Regulations are severely curtailed. Following the Housing Standards Review, they can no longer require developers to build to higher levels of the Code for Sustainable Homes. Influencing new development through stronger regulations was a key part of many cities’ climate action plans.

In spite of this, local authorities are still able to set higher environmental requirements for commercial buildings and insist that developers build to BREEAM standards. When the costs and savings of regulation are calculated by the government the energy savings to office occupants are included in the calculations. However, when the costs of energy standards for new homes are calculated by the government, energy savings for households are not included. The current processes of reviewing policy are based on financial costs and benefits, but value judgements are made about which costs are included. The Housing Standards Review has created a long period of uncertainty for the industry. The transaction costs that result from this uncertainty, such as staff training or product development to meet a new standard that is subsequently withdrawn, are also not included in policy impact financial calculations.

In the short-term, strengthening Building Regulations or modernizing regulatory tools such as the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) seem unlikely. Voluntary codes and standards can have an important complementary role to play alongside regulation. Some landowners who wish to go beyond the legal minimum find a benchmark developed by a third party valuable. Current examples can be found in Norwich, where the city council is using a combination of AECB and Passivhaus standards on sites that it owns and are being developed for housing. In the current market for new homes, consumer drivers are relatively weak and buyers and mortgage lenders rarely place a premium on energy efficiency or other sustainable features. There is, however, the potential to do more to change this situation. If a standard adds value to a property by appealing to buyers, then the business case to do more becomes much stronger.

These views are based on a report carried out for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Trust on the Future for policy and standards for low and zero carbon new homes. The report draws on over 70 interviews with key stakeholders in the industry. It is available free to download.

Alina Congreve is an Associate at the Centre for Cities at the University of Hertfordshire. An experienced sustainability and built environment professional, Alina has specialist expertise in a number of areas, including sustainability and new residential development and resource efficiency in construction.

Read our other blog posts on energy efficient homes:

The Aktivhaus: is this the future of sustainable living?

Posted on September 24, 2015 by jamescarson2014

DEU, Stuttgart, Dokumentation Aufbau Pavillon Wei§enhofsiedlung, Werner Sobek Design GmbH , Fertigstellung: 2014 , DIGITAL 100 MB 8 Bit. - ©Zooey Braun; Veroeffentlichung nur gegen Honorar, Urhebervermerk und Beleg / permission required for reproduction, mention of copyright, complimentary copy, FUER WERBENUTZUNG RUECKSPRACHE ERFORDERLICH!/ PERMISSION REQUIRED FOR ADVERTISING!

By James Carson

Earlier this year, we looked at a style of building known as Passivhaus, which is playing an important role in creating energy-efficient homes. Now, another concept – the Aktivhaus – is taking this approach even further, graduating from energy-saving to energy-generating homes.

The Aktivhaus concept

Like Passivhaus, the Aktivhaus has its origins in Germany. Stuttgart-based architect Werner Sobek defines Aktivhaus buildings as those which:

offset their annual total energy consumption in a sustainable manner;
anticipate and react accordingly to relevant changes both inside and outside the house;
continuously measure and optimise all energy streams.

Sobek’s idea has been realised in the form of a building called B10. This prototype Aktivhaus – prefabricated offsite and assembled in a single day – is located at the Weissenhof settlement in Stuttgart. It’s an appropriate site for applying a revolutionary concept – in 1927 the Weissenhof estate hosted a housing exhibition that included designs by leading lights in modern architecture, such as Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

The Aktivhaus enacted

On the face of it, B10 is an 85 square-metre box with a full-length window. But its sophisticated design means the Aktivhaus can generate twice as much electric power from sustainable energy sources as it consumes. This means it can not only satisfy its own electricity needs, but can also power two electric cars and a neighbouring house built by Le Corbusier for the 1927 exhibition.

The ‘active’ element in the Aktivhaus is a mini computer, connected to the internet, that monitors weather forecasts and enables the house to respond accordingly, with different rooms heated or cooled at different times of the day. Other elements include a highly efficient heating system, web app-operated functions to control lighting and window blinds, and 17mm thick vacuum glazing whose three layers keep heat in and draughts out.

Werner Sobek believes that the Aktivhaus concept is not only applicable to new homes. “Our system is very helpful for old buildings,” he told the New York Times.

“Some might feel it best to leave the imperfections as they are and not invest in major energy improvements and instead rely on the surplus energy from a ‘sister house,’ but the system can also help you decide to make modest changes to the windows or to improve the boiler.”

DEU, Stuttgart, Musterhaus Wei§enhofsiedlung, AWerner Sobek Design, Fertigstellung: 2014 , DIGITAL 100 MB 8 Bit. - ©Zooey Braun; Veroeffentlichung nur gegen Honorar, Urhebervermerk und Beleg / permission required for reproduction, mention of copyright, complimentary copy, FUER WERBENUTZUNG RUECKSPRACHE ERFORDERLICH!/ PERMISSION REQUIRED FOR ADVERTISING!

Over three years, researchers will study B10’s performance as a real-life residence. The building can later be dismantled and reassembled elsewhere, and when it reaches the end of its life almost all parts of the Aktivhaus have been designed to be recycled.

With construction costs of €100,000 and the technology inside priced at a further €600,000, the Aktivhaus is hardly an affordable housing option. But eventual scaling up of production could drive those costs down.

In the meantime, the ideas coming out of the Aktivhaus project may influence those looking for ways to tackle the ongoing issues of housing shortages, climate change and fuel poverty.

The Idox Information Service can give you access to a wealth of further information on energy-efficient housing; to find out more on how to become a member, contact us.

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PassivHaus … a home for all seasons?

Posted on July 3, 2015 by jamescarson2014

Image by Pichler Haus, released under a standard Creative Commons Licence

By James Carson

This week, eight contenders are waiting expectantly for the results of the 2015 UK PassivHaus Awards. The awards celebrate sustainability and good building design, with the focus on the PassivHaus concept.

What is PassivHaus?

PassivHaus is an approach to building that is designed to eliminate the need for traditional central heating systems by combining:

excellent levels of insulation
passive solar gains and internal heat sources
excellent level of airtightness
good indoor air quality, provided by a whole house mechanical ventilation system with highly efficient heat recovery.

Since its small beginnings as a German-Swedish collaboration in the 1980s, over 30,000 buildings around the world have been built using the PassivHaus approach.

The benefits of PassivHaus

Energy efficiency lies at the heart of a PassivHaus building. The PassivHaus Institut, which plays a leading role in promoting the concept, has claimed that these buildings can achieve energy savings of up to 75% compared to average new builds. PassivHaus proponents also claim that the buildings have significantly better levels of air quality, and greatly reduce carbon emissions.

Practical issues

While the long-term energy savings are impressive, PassivHaus buildings are not without their critics. Among their concerns:

Cost: The higher standards of PassivHaus buildings, including triple-glazed windows, mechanical ventilation systems and vacuum insulation, all add to the costs of PassivHaus construction. The consensus seems to be that PassivHaus will increase build costs by 15% to 25%, and it’s believed that the higher costs have limited the concept’s application to a handful of private housing developments in the UK.
Construction time: Because of the optimum performance demanded of them, PassivHaus buildings can take longer to install. In the Republic of Ireland, concerns about slower construction times during a serious housing shortage has prompted the government to oppose plans by local authorities in Dublin to make the PassivHaus standard mandatory for new homes. PassivHaus proponents in Ireland have condemned the moves as short-sighted, and claim that PassivHauses won’t slow down construction.
Adaptability: Another criticism of the PassivHaus concept is that it’s not readily adaptable, and that structural alterations may interfere with the integrity of a PassivHaus building.

A building or a lifestyle?

There have also been claims that residents may themselves have to adapt to PassivHaus living.

“Building a house to this standard means agreeing to live a certain lifestyle, which if lived to the book can work very well, and has been proven to do so time and time again. You must appreciate, however, that building such a home is a lot of trouble to go to if ultimately you do not want to live the PassivHaus lifestyle.” (The Green Home)

However, PassivHaus supporters dismiss the idea that these buildings are too complicated to maintain:

“The ventilation system, not common in conventional buildings, is user-friendly and easy to operate with fewer controls than a normal television.”

PassivHaus in the UK

The PassivHaus concept was slow to take off in Britain, but more and more UK architects have become interested in PassivHaus since 2013, when the government committed to implementing zero carbon homes from 2016. The zero carbon homes standard will require house builders to decrease all carbon emissions from energy arising from fixed heating and lighting, hot water and other fixed building services, such as ventilation, in new homes. It’s worth noting, however, that the zero carbon standard is less strict than PassivHaus.

The PassivHaus approach is not limited to residential properties. Among the buildings shortlisted for the UK PassivHaus awards this year are a primary school, an office and an education centre.

Elsewhere, the University of Leicester’s Centre for Medicine is currently under construction, and is set to be the UK’s largest PassivHaus building. It’s estimated that the high levels of insulation and a state-of-the-art heating, cooling and ventilation system will reduce the university’s energy bill for its new teaching and research facility by 80%, compared to the previous building.

PassivHaus may also be able to contribute to alleviating Britain’s housing crisis. A social housing project currently under construction in Rainham, east London, aims to demonstrate that PassivHaus is a commercially viable solution to the UK’s shortage of affordable homes. The builders of the 51-home project claim that this will be the first PassivHaus development to be let entirely at affordable rents.

Future prospects

Inadequate heating, poor insulation and high energy costs have become significant factors in the rise of fuel poverty among households in the UK. At the same time, there is a pressing need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. So, it may be that the buildings being showcased at this year’s PassivHaus awards may come to be seen as ahead of their time.

The Idox Information Service can give you access to a wealth of further information on housing; to find out more on how to become a member, contact us.

The Knowledge Exchange Blog

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The Aktivhaus: is this the future of sustainable living?

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