1920’s classic West Bridgford solid brick detached house

Still with many of the old features but incorporating many very new features too.


As the house is fairly large (6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms) the heating and electricity bills were shocking. We put into place as many measures, from basic to more expensive to reduce the bills in a more sustainable way.

Vital Statistics
The house was built in the early 1920’s on a corner plot, giving us a clear south facing wall.

Annual energy use
Annual Electricity usage 3231.90kWh
Annual Gas 34832.55 kWh
(This should change now that the new technologies have been installed.)

Micro generation:
To find info how much electricity we have generated from the sun since November 2009, click here:

About us and why we did it
We are a middle aged couple with two teenage boys. Since the boys were born, we have been very concerned for their future and started with growing our own organic food, educated them in the Iona School (based on Rudolf Steiner’s principles) which then led to a much more aware way of living. Ever since we have tried to reduce our waste, energy and water to reduce our impact on the planet to as much as we can. Reduction of waste is mainly done through growing our own food and making food from scratch. For some suggestions on recipes click here:
Heating and Power

South Facing side of the house:
Top floor Solar Hotwater panels.
Between bay windows and conservatory: Solar Venti panel
PV solar, Solar Hot water, Wood-burning Stove, Solar Venti dehumidifier, Energy smart meter.

Insulation
Our house is built in solid brick, which made insulation a little difficult. We have insulated underneath most of our floor boards, the whole of the loft up to 30cm, one room has internal insulation boarding put up 2 years ago. Some double glazed units but mostly secondary glazing (Storm windows) in front of the existing original windows.

Other green features
Vegetable garden; there will be vegetable and fruit plants/bushes for sale on the day.
Livestock (chickens!)
Information and display about the West Bridgford Skills Exchange

Advantages
It feels good that we are trying to reduce our impact on the living environment as much as we can. Some features were so good that they paid back within a year (electricity monitor) others over the next few years will no doubt pay off, we are expecting to be self-sufficient in our heating and electricity needs in 5-8 years time.

Disadvantages
The plumbing of the Solar hot water and putting in the stove did take a few days of mess. Having said that, Paul and Chris and his team tried to accommodate as much as they could. The upfront prices are fairly steep.

Who did you go to for advice and info?
All these people were recommended to me by others who had the technologies installed:
PV by David Nicolson Cole, Solar hot water I went to see their shop, spoke with them and then had some feedback from Emma who had one installed before me. Smart meters I tried and tested some for website I write for; www.thecolist.co.uk and found that they were brilliant. I therefore ‘invested’ in one and have reduced my energy use enormously.


Who did each part of the work?

Task
Solar Hot Water by Solar Heat UK contact: Chris
Woodburning Stove from The Fireplace centre contact Paul at enquiries@nottinghamfireplacecentre.co.uk

PV panel (electricity) Nicola Waters Evo Energy
Energy Smart Meter Southern and electric Better plan
Secondary Glazing Storm Windows
Ifo Cera Low flush toilet
Solarventi solar dehumidifier

1890s Extensively renovated West Bridgford semi

This was the UK's first radical retrofit of a hard-to-treat home - an 1890s Victorian semi in West Bridgford. Nottingham Ecohome has been running 11 years. Owners Penney Poyzer and Gil Schalom are acknowledged as pioneers of domestic radical eco retrofit. Both Penney and Gill have presented lectures on eco-retrofit and had students writing dissertations on their story, and have occasional Open Days. See the Nottingham Ecohome Website for more info.

Heating and Power
Heat exchange, Solar Hot water, Energy smart meter
House central heating and hot water system runs on waste wood biomass boiler
Solar thermal is used for summer heating
Single room Heat recovery devices.

Insulation
There is external insulation to side and back of house. Internal insulation to the front.
The external and internal insulation overlap relative to each other, to reduce cold bridging.
Floors and attic conversion are highly insulated.

Other green features
Vegetable garden, Water Harvesting, Water saving devices, Lexin Panels
A sewage catchment and composting system was tried, but abandoned in 2006.

A fuller list of features is on the website of the house:
List of Features: http://www.msarch.co.uk/ecohome/feature.html
Details of the renovation: http://www.msarch.co.uk/ecohome/tour.html

Traditional 1920's 4-bed detached Westbridgford house.

When we bought the house five years ago in early autumn we were thrilled with the lovely big rooms and high ceilings. We were much less thrilled when we moved in and we almost moved out again straight-away as it was REALLY freezing in winter, very draughty and we had to have the heating on round the clock. We would not have bought this house if we had viewed it during the winter months or seen their fuel bills!

Since then it has improved, we have double glazed french doors at the front and back and nearly all windows now have either secondary or double glazing. We have put in very thick loft insulation and installed solar panels which provide hot water and water for the central heating system.

The house is much better now and we are no longer scraping the ice of the windows every morning and we can take three duvets off the children's beds. However, although now a comfortable house it is still very expensive to run in the winter months as the solar panels only work May through October. We are planning to install a multi-fuel stove in the hope it will cut down on our fuel bills in the most severe winter months.

We are saving up for photovoltaics but that may take some time but we do love our electricity meter (OWL) as it's really provided an incentive to turn off our TVs/computers on stand-by and reminds the children to turn off lights and computers left on upstairs.

Vital Statistics

Built in 1929, four bedroom solid brick built detached house with larger south facing rear garden

• About us and why we did it
There are four in our family (2 young children), we try to live in a sustainable way as we are worried about the world’s resources, and how it will be for future generations as oil gets more difficult to find and extract. We also had a large draughty house which was difficult to keep warm and expensive to run in the winter.

• Heating and Power
On the south facing side of the house: Solar heating and hot water panels.
We have gas central heating which is supported by the solar hot water panels in the summer and we are shortly installing a multi-fuel stove which will support our central heating in the winter.
We are replacing our G-rated boiler with an A-rated boiler, and we have an Energy Smart Meter.

• Insulation
We do not have cavity wall insulation as it is a solid brick built construction. We do have either double or secondary glazing on all our windows except the bathroom which is south facing. We do have loft insulation and are currently investigating cladding for our walls and underfloor insulation.

• Other green features


In an attempt to be more sustainable we try to grow a lot of our own fruit and vegetables and have set up a raised bed with 10 cordon apple and pear trees to maximize our yield. Watering is a bit of an issue as the raised beds dry out quickly so we harvest rain water and have one of those bath suction hoses so we can water our beds with bath water on the hot days in summer which the kids love to do.

• Advantages
The upfront costs of installing solar panels are quite high but hopefully it will pay for itself in the next five years. I would not put the boiler on in the day when it was just me at home but am now getting warm water in the taps for free which is an added bonus.

• Disadvantages
Having the solar panels installed for hot water was not messy but having it hooked up to the central heating system is a week’s worth of mess and inconvenience. Do consider this if you have a young family at home. However, the team we used worked well together and were very pleasant and would tidy up after themselves.

• Who did you go to for advice and info?
Would have loved to go on an eco-house tour but asked Solar-UK who they had just worked for and asked if we could visit a house in Bridgford that had just had their solar panels installed.

• Who did each part of the work?

Solar Hot Water
Woodburning Stove (hot water)
Chris at Solar Heat UK enquiries@nottinghamfireplacecentre.co.uk
Paul at enquiries@nottinghamfireplacecentre.co.uk

1930’s West Bridgford detached house

1930’s West Bridgford detached house



The house was built in the late 1930’s on a straight road. We have a long west facing back garden.

About us and why we did it
We have always grown vegetables and fruit. When finances allowed we had the underside of roof tiles foam insulated, then got the solar panel and solid fuel fire. We view it as an investment in the future.

Heating and Power
Solar Hot water; a Solid fuel Stove and/or the gas boiler heats the water and central heating. These are handled through a neutraliser.

Insulation
In common with many in WB we have solid walls. The roof void had no insulation and the wind whistled through the tiles distributing dust. We insulated the loft in the traditional fashion and had the underside of the tiles sprayed by in Insulation Firm. There is now no dust.

Other green features
Vegetable garden. Used to have chickens and bees.

Who did you go to for advice and info?
Sheila Hood, Rushcliffe Borough Council
Notts Energy Partnership

Who did the work?
Solar Hot Water installed by Dr Gary Wood of Solar Horizons (01283 529019) Garywood2008@hotmail.com
MR Heating (0783 752 0950)

Ways to Save Water

The 4th in a series of events held at South Notts College in Ruddington focused on saving water in the home. Here is a short summary of the talks, and some useful facts are listed below. It’s a big topic so just a small selection included here.

Tina Holt gave an overview. In summary, water-saving habits really make a huge difference in the amount of water consumed in the home. Hot water has a much higher carbon footprint than cold water (about 5 times higher), so cut your heating bills and save carbon by insulating taps and pipes and using hot water carefully.

David Roe explained his home-made rainwater harvesting system, which supplies water to toilets, washing machine and dishwasher. To buy such a system new would be very expensive and is not as eco-friendly as it seems. However, using reused tanks and some basic pipework, this home-made approach has a very low carbon footprint.

Ian Mumford showed how to avoid paying the surface drainage charge by re-directing all the water from his roof into water-butts, and from there via pipes across his garden. There would be a big environmental benefit if every house with a garden could do this, because after heavy rain, water falling on the house and driveway normally flows rapidly into the drains and rivers and can cause flooding. However, when this water is diverted into the garden, instead of adding to the flooding problem, it feeds the local soil and sub-soil. From here it can make its way gradually into rivers, lakes and groundwater – which are all sources of our mains water supply.

Gil Shalom shared 10 years’ experience of saving water in a retrofit eco-home. Surprisingly, simple water saving habits and low flush toilets were his top tips, along with shorter showers.

Watch out – many types of low flush toilets leak from the cistern into the loo and waste huge amounts of water. If you are looking for a leak-free low flush loo, try the ES4 (a 4 litre single flush available from the Green Building Store).

If you are careful with water, being on a water meter may be cheaper than the rate-based water bill. (Try to estimate your water use accurately for a week and estimate your likely bill from the pricing information on the Severn Trent website). Or instead, try this simple water calculator: http://www.ccwater.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.388 All you need to do is download the excel document and go to the “Severn Trent” tab.

Open day at Karina’s house

There is an Open Day on AUGUST 23 at Karina’s House. Visitors can call between 2 and 4pm. The focus is on Photovoltaic (PV) systems, but Karina also has a solar thermal system linked to a wood-burning stove and gas boiler for hot water and central heating.
Evo Energy will be on hand to provide technical information on PV, and Karina will be able to talk about her experience as the home-owner.
Please email info@wbecohouses.co.uk so that we know how many to expect and so that we can give you the address details.
There will be further events on a wide range of eco-retrofit topics – keep your eyes on the blog or email us asking to be added to the Eco House Group list to receive invitations by email.