Eco House
MARPLE, MELLOR & MARPLE BRIDGE ENERGY SAVING STRATEGY is a local community project which aims to promote carbon reduction, raise awareness of climate change issues and find local solutions to some of the resulting problems.
The paragraph numbers refer to the hotspots on the virtual tours except for 7 and 8 which refer to photographs.
1. Floors. The floors are solid and we have covered them with 3 inches of insulation protected by flooring grade chipboard. 2. Walls. The walls had cavity insulation but the rear of the house now has an additional layer of external insulation. This is comprised of 100mm extruded polystyrene foam insulation board bonded to a polystyrene vacuum formed skin to which are bonded 15mm thick fire clay brick slips. This has improved our energy efficiency by about 15%. The end wall is already very well insulated, but we had also intended to insulate the front of the house and cover up the non-matching brick of the extension. However, planning permission was refused on the grounds that it “would be an incongruous feature and adversely affect the street scene”. 3. Ventilation. Where possible, draughts have been eliminated and a mechanical ventilation system installed to keep the air fresh. This heats the fresh air coming into the house using heat from the stale air drawn out of the house. This system saves 90% of the heat normally lost by ventilation.
3a. Retrofitting a ventilation system require ducting to be installed but this does not need to be obtrusive.
3b. Vents take stale air out of the “wet” areas of the house such as the kitchen and bathroom.
3c. Fresh air is brought in to the living rooms and bedrooms.
cost and too many have been of poor quality or their light output has been exaggerated. However, a 100W ordinary bulb will use £14 worth of electricity during its life of 1000 hours, so in the long term, a well chosen low energy bulb will save you money.
7. Heating. All forms of energy eventually end up as heat, and with a high grade form of energy, it is possible to do other things with it before it degrades. We have installed a gas powered “Combined Heat and Power” unit (CHP) which can generate electricity as a by-product of heating the house. When the boiler is on it uses a Stirling engine to generate 1kW of electricity and about 5kW of heat. The good thing is that we get cheap electricity and very little of the heat is wasted (as it is in a power station), as the combination is over 90% efficient. [SEE PICTURE]
8. Tumble dryers use a lot of energy so we have installed a drying rack in a cupboard which is ventilated (hidden inside in the top left corner). We have only used the tumble dryer twice since we installed the drying rack two years ago. [SEE PICTURE]
While you may not be able to do all of these things in your house, and we recognise we were very fortunate that we could, if you are thinking of changing anything such as building work, a new boiler, new lighting or even decorating, then now is the time to take another step towards a lower carbon home. Please email us if you want any more information or help to improve your carbon footprint.
