Homes Behaving Badly - which workshop is for you?

As part of the Homes Behaving Badly project, there will be 4 free workshops for householders (details in previous posts and this press release).

But which workshop (or workshops) would be relevant to you?

The first workshop is for people living in cavity wall homes. It does not matter whether your cavity walls are already insulated or not - we'll cover both. There are plenty of ways to reduce the energy bills or deal with issues such as cold, condensation and mould. Some options are completely free, others are basic DIY tasks, and others have a medium or large price tag.

If you want to talk to someone who has trimmed their bills right down (in a perfectly ordinary cavity wall house, on a very ordinary budget), this is the workshop for  you. Maybe your home is already pretty good but you are thinking about renewables, come along and find out whether it's worth it. Maybe you've heard about the Green Deal - the government's finance scheme for efficiency improvements, due to be launched in autumn 2012. We'll have the latest update on that as well.

(If you don't know whether your home has a cavity between the two skins of brick that make up the wall, step outside and look at the brickwork. If all the bricks are lengthways on (i.e. no end-on bricks in the pattern), and this pattern continues all the way up the wall, then your house is likely to have a cavity, which may or may not be filled with insulation already.)

The second and third workshops are for people living in solid wall homes. The workshops will cover similar topics, but on the 3rd March, the focus will be on lower cost and DIY improvements, while on 10th March we will go into more detail on the higher cost options that can result in bigger changes in energy use and comfort.

Maybe you've heard about the Green Deal - the government's finance scheme due to be launched in autumn 2012. Will the Green Deal and the related "ECO" scheme help towards the costs of improving solid wall homes? We'll have the latest update on that as well.

(If you think your home may have solid walls (rather than cavity walls), look at the external brickwork for end-on bricks. These end-on bricks go right through the wall and indicate that the 2 skins of brick forming the wall have no gap between them.)

In these three workshops, we will use energy modelling (SAP) to show how houses of different types and ages can be made more energy efficient in different ways. And we'll use real case studies to show what the reality of different options can be like. Some of the home owners whose houses form the case studies will be at the workshop to talk about their homes and their experiences.

The final workshop will focus on saving energy in loft conversions, attic rooms, and any other locations where there is a combination of roofs and walls. Whether you are considering a new loft conversion, or trying to improve one that was built some years ago and needs upgrading in some way, this workshop will consider the products and methods that work best in different situations. Again, we'll look at DIY and higher cost options, the pitfalls and the top tips.


Booking is recommended so book your place with Sarah Goodman
07772 330779 or by email sarah.goodman.ehg@gmail.com