Creative Energy Homes

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The Creative Energy Homes [1] (CEH) project is a showcase of energy-efficient homes of the future. Seven homes constructed on the University Park Campus of the University of Nottingham are being designed and constructed to various degrees of innovation and flexibility to allow the testing of different aspects of modern methods of construction including layout and form, cladding materials, roof structures, foundations, glazing materials, thermal performance, building services systems, sustainable/renewable energy technologies, lighting systems, acoustics and water supply. The project aims to stimulate sustainable design ideas and promote new ways of providing affordable, environmentally sustainable housing that are innovative in their design. The homes are fully instrumented and occupied in order to provide comprehensive post occupancy evaluation data.

The David Wilson House

The David Wilson Ecohouse CEH DavidWilsonHouse.jpg
The David Wilson Ecohouse

Construction of the CEH project began in 1999 with the David Wilson Ecohouse.

This is a 4-bedroom detached property which uses brick and block construction. Its main purpose was to support research into domestic-sized renewable energy systems such as micro-CHP (Combined heat and power), solar thermal, micro-wind, sun pipes, and natural ventilation devices.

The house is currently used as office space for University of Nottingham staff and continues to be used as a test bed for University research projects.

The BASF House

The BASF house was the 3rd house to be constructed and was completed in January 2008 taking only 25 weeks to build. The house was designed by Derek Trowell Architects to demonstrate that it is possible to build an affordable low energy house whilst still adherering to the Passivhaus ideology. It meets the level 4 standard of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

The house has a compact floor area and relies as much as possible on passive solar design to keep costs down. The north, east and west walls are highly insulated, with the minimum number of openings compatible with acceptable day lighting standards. The southern elevation consists of a fully glazed two-layer adjustable sunspace with glazed screens that can be opened or closed to facilitate heating or cooling.

A ground-air heat exchanger, supplied by Rehau, lies to the front of the house and this consists of a network of horizontal pipes buried approximately 2m underground. At this depth the soil temperature only varies between 8-12 °C throughout the year. Therefore, in winter cold air can be pre-heated before being drawn into the house and in the summer the air can be cooled.

A rainwater harvesting system has also been installed, which consists of a 3500 litres tank buried under the car parking space. It collects the run-off water from the roof. This water can be used for washing clothes, watering the garden, flushing the toilet and general cleaning. Water efficiency is also an important factor of the code for sustainable homes and using a rainwater harvesting system drastically reduces the amount of mains water used per person per day.

The sun space, at the front of the house captures the solar gain from the sun, heating the air for use in the rest of the house. The south facing elevation is almost 100% glazed and the north facing elevation 30% glazed, providing improved quality of life in the home by maximising the use of natural daylight and reducing the energy required to light the home.

On the roof of the house are 3 solar thermal panels used for hot water heating. This is a larger system than is typical for this size of house, which allows storage of hot water for as long as 3 days and helps compensate for extended periods of overcast conditions.

The E.ON 2016 House

The E.ON House is a replica 1930s UK semi-detached house built primarily to research the impact of various retrofitting solutions on the existing housing stock.

According to the Code for Sustainable Homes (CfSH) all the new houses built from 2016 are required to meet Level 6 requirements of the CfSH, or be carbon zero. However, it is estimated that by the year 2050, 25 million existing UK homes will still account for between 70 and 90 percent of the housing stock. [2] Around 25% of UK CO2 emissions derive from the domestic housing stock [3] so clearly there is a large opportunity to reduce UK carbon emissions by increasing the efficiency of existing homes.

The house is built to 1930s building regulations and the project developers had to receive special planning permission in order to construct the house. It has no roof or wall cavity insulation and uses single glazed windows. Hot water is provided by an outdated, inefficient non-condensing gas boiler and immersion heater. The plan is to bring this 1930s house to a top of the range home meeting Level 6 CfSH. It is hoped that the lessons learnt from this detailed research will help point the way to retrofitting homes to create more sustainable properties. The project consists of three phases:

  1. During the first phase the house was monitored in its original state. There are over 100 sensors positioned around the house monitoring temperature, relative humidity, electricity consumption of individual appliances, gas consumption, water consumption, total electricity consumption and occupancy.
  2. The second phase was carried out from August 2010 to June 2011. The building was upgraded with additional insulation, an improved heating system, double glazing, more efficient lighting and drought proofing. Research was carried out as to the impact of these improvements.
  3. In the third phase, due to begin in late 2011, further improvements will be made incorporating the installation of a conservatory-style extension creating a buffer zone between the property and the outside elements and a sun space to maximise solar gain. Renewable energy technologies, such as Solar panel and solar hot water system will also be installed in order to supply the house with electricity and hot water.

The Tarmac Homes

Tarmac have sponsored the construction of two semi-detached eco-homes called Tarmac House. These are designed by ZEDfactory, the company responsible for the BEDZED project in south London. One home is built to Level 4 CfSH and the other to Level 6 CfSH.

These houses demonstrate that it is possible to build a sustainable home using currently available materials and traditional methods of construction. Sustainability features of the properties include:

The Nottingham H.O.U.S.E (Home Optimising the Use of Solar Energy)

Nottingham H.O.U.S.E is a small family "starter" home, which was built as a part of a Solar Decathlon Europe 2010 event by the students of the Department of Architecture and Built Environment. The house delivers a zero carbon sustainable design solution that is compliant with level 6 of UK's Code for Sustainable Homes. It is a prefabricated two storey house with a courtyard garden that can be used in terrace or semi-detached form.

The House was presented at the Ecobuild 2010 event and awarded with the prize for the best use of timber. The models of the house were also presented at the Shanghai Expo 2010. The prefabricated house is due to be moved on to the University Park campus of the University of Nottingham in the near future.

The Mark Group House

The Mark Group house is currently under construction. It is a 4-bedroom property constructed using a steel framing system with insulation cladding. Construction of the basement uses an Insulating Concrete Form (ICF) which incorporates Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS) into the Portland cement.

Manufacturing Portland cement produces around 1 tonne of CO2 per tonne of concrete whereas GGBS, as a by-product of the iron industry, produces only 0.1 tonnes of CO2 per tonne[ citation needed ]. GGBS can be mixed with Portland cement 70%-30% to decrease its carbon footprint by around 40%[ citation needed ].

Related Research Articles

A Trombe wall is a massive equator-facing wall that is painted a dark color in order to absorb thermal energy from incident sunlight and covered with a glass on the outside with an insulating air-gap between the wall and the glaze. A Trombe wall is a passive solar building design strategy that adopts the concept of indirect-gain, where sunlight first strikes a solar energy collection surface in contact with a thermal mass of air. The sunlight absorbed by the mass is converted to thermal energy (heat) and then transferred into the living space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Passive solar building design</span> Architectural engineering that uses the Suns heat without electric or mechanical systems

In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unlike active solar heating systems, it does not involve the use of mechanical and electrical devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earth shelter</span> House partially or entirely surrounded by earth

An earth shelter, also called an earth house, earth bermed house, or underground house, is a structure with earth (soil) against the walls, on the roof, or that is entirely buried underground.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BedZED</span> Housing development in Hackbridge, London

Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) is an environmentally friendly housing development in Hackbridge, London, England. It is in the London Borough of Sutton, 2 miles (3 km) north-east of the town of Sutton itself. Designed to create zero carbon emissions, it was the first large scale community to do so.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earthship</span> Style of architecture that uses native materials and upcycled materials to build homes.

An Earthship is a style of architecture developed in the late 20th century to early 21st century by architect Michael Reynolds. Earthships are designed to behave as passive solar earth shelters made of both natural and upcycled materials such as earth-packed tires. Earthships may feature a variety of amenities and aesthetics, and are designed to withstand the extreme temperatures of a desert, managing to stay close to 70 °F (21 °C) regardless of outside weather conditions. Earthship communities were originally built in the desert of northern New Mexico, near the Rio Grande, and the style has spread to small pockets of communities around the globe, in some cases in spite of legal opposition to its construction and adoption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green building</span> To save the environment/resources

Green building refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This requires close cooperation of the contractor, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Green building also refers to saving resources to the maximum extent, including energy saving, land saving, water saving, material saving, etc., during the whole life cycle of the building, protecting the environment and reducing pollution, providing people with healthy, comfortable and efficient use of space, and being in harmony with nature Buildings that live in harmony. Green building technology focuses on low consumption, high efficiency, economy, environmental protection, integration and optimization.’

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Low-energy house</span> House designed for reduced energy use

A low-energy house is characterized by an energy-efficient design and technical features which enable it to provide high living standards and comfort with low energy consumption and carbon emissions. Traditional heating and active cooling systems are absent, or their use is secondary. Low-energy buildings may be viewed as examples of sustainable architecture. Low-energy houses often have active and passive solar building design and components, which reduce the house's energy consumption and minimally impact the resident's lifestyle. Throughout the world, companies and non-profit organizations provide guidelines and issue certifications to guarantee the energy performance of buildings and their processes and materials. Certifications include passive house, BBC - Bâtiment Basse Consommation - Effinergie (France), zero-carbon house (UK), and Minergie (Switzerland).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Passive house</span> Type of house

Passive house is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building's ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling. A similar standard, MINERGIE-P, is used in Switzerland. The standard is not confined to residential properties; several office buildings, schools, kindergartens and a supermarket have also been constructed to the standard. The design is not an attachment or supplement to architectural design, but a design process that integrates with architectural design. Although it is generally applied to new buildings, it has also been used for refurbishments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sustainable architecture</span> Architecture designed to minimize environmental impact

Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable architecture uses a conscious approach to energy and ecological conservation in the design of the built environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zero-energy building</span> Energy efficiency standard for buildings

A Zero-Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero-Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels.

Renewable heat is an application of renewable energy referring to the generation of heat from renewable sources; for example, feeding radiators with water warmed by focused solar radiation rather than by a fossil fuel boiler. Renewable heat technologies include renewable biofuels, solar heating, geothermal heating, heat pumps and heat exchangers. Insulation is almost always an important factor in how renewable heating is implemented.

Domestic housing in the United Kingdom presents a possible opportunity for achieving the 20% overall cut in UK greenhouse gas emissions targeted by the Government for 2010. However, the process of achieving that drop is proving problematic given the very wide range of age and condition of the UK housing stock.

The Code for Sustainable Homes was an environmental assessment method for rating and certifying the performance of new homes in United Kingdom. First introduced in 2006, it is a national standard for use in the design and construction of new homes with a view to encouraging continuous improvement in sustainable home building. In 2015 the Government in England withdrew it, consolidating some standards into Building Regulations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pennyland project</span> Low Energy Building Experiment

The Pennyland project was one of a series of low-energy building experiments sparked by the 1973 oil crisis. It involved the construction of an estate of 177 houses in the Pennyland area of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. It compared possible future UK building efficiency standards with newly introduced Danish ones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado Court Housing</span>

Colorado Court Housing is a 44-unit housing project designed by the architectural firm Pugh + Scarpa. Colorado Court is the first United States Green Building Council (USGBC) "LEED" certified multi-family housing project, achieving "Gold" certification. Located at the corner of a main offramp of the Santa Monica freeway, Colorado Court's highly visible position makes it gateway to the city of Santa Monica, California. The 44-unit, five-story building is the first affordable-housing project the United States to be LEED certified and is nearly 100% energy neutral (Colorado Court Movie Clip). This project is an excellent model of sustainable development in an urban environment, provides a model for private/public partnerships benefit the community, and promotes diversity in an urban environment through strategically placed affordable housing.

Both the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom promote green building. Presently, there are already regulatory mechanisms in place that establish Britain's commitment to this kind of building construction. The government, for instance, set out a target that by 2016, all new homes will have zero carbon emission and it also includes a progressive tightening of energy efficiency regulations by 25 percent and 44 percent in 2010 and 2013, respectively. The UK Building Regulations set requirements for insulation levels and other aspects of sustainability in building construction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecohouse</span> Home built to have low environmental impact

An Eco-house (or Eco-home) is an environmentally low-impact home designed and built using materials and technology that reduces its carbon footprint and lowers its energy needs. Eco-homes are measured in multiple ways meeting sustainability needs such as water conservation, reducing wastes through reusing and recycling materials, controlling pollution to limit global warming, energy generation and conservation, and decreasing CO2 emissions.

A green retrofit is any refurbishment of an existing building that aims to reduce the carbon emissions and environmental impact of the building. This can include improving the energy efficiency of the HVAC and other mechanical systems, increasing the quality of insulation in the building envelope, implementing sustainable energy generation, and aiming to improve occupant comfort and health.

Sustainable refurbishment describes working on existing buildings to improve their environmental performance using sustainable methods and materials. A refurbishment or retrofit is defined as: “any work to a building over and above maintenance to change its capacity, function or performance’ in other words, any intervention to adjust, reuse, or upgrade a building to suit new conditions or requirements” [7]. Refurbishment can be done to a part of a building, an entire building, or a campus [5]. Sustainable refurbishment takes this a step further to modify the existing building to perform better in terms of its environmental impact and its occupants' environment.

The INTEGER Millennium House is a demonstration house in Watford, England that opened to the public in 1998. It was renamed The Smart Home after being refurbished in 2013. The house was originally intended to showcase innovations in design and construction, building intelligence, and environmental performance. The INTEGER design included many innovative features, including environmental technology such as a green roof and a grey water recycling system, home automation that included a building management system and an intelligent security system, and innovative technical systems such as under-floor trench heating. In 2013, the house was refurbished and retrofitted with a variety of new and upgraded features, including a building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) array, which altogether halved its carbon emissions and increased its energy efficiency by 50%. Since its creation, the house has garnered numerous awards, appeared on Tomorrow's World on BBC Television, hosted thousands of visitors, and influenced mainstream construction.

References

  1. "Creative Energy Homes project". The University of Nottingham.
  2. "Existing Housing and Climate Change" (PDF). House of Commons. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
  3. Firth, Steven. "Investigating CO2 emissions reduction in existing urban housing using a community domestic energy model" (PDF). Proceedings of the Eleventh International IBPSA Conference. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2011.