Many local residents have made inspirational changes to their homes, cutting their energy use and carbon footprint and increasing comfort without sacrificing on their character. Here are some examples below. Note that most of these homes participate in our regular Green Open Homes events – these take place every year. During 2020 these tours are taking place virtually – check out our videos for the first two homes below.
Grosvenor Road, London N10
An Edwardian family on a corner plot with the following carbon saving features:
- Focus upon maximum insulation where practical plus renewable heat (wood) and hot water (solar)
- Wooden suspended floors with 80mm ‘Thermafleece’ sheeps wool insulation & boarding
- All internal faces of external walls insulated with 10mm ‘Sempatap’ internal wall insulation
- Attic roof insulation of 100mm Kingspan, plasterboard plus 10mm ‘Sempatap’
- Refurbished sash windows with ‘Magneglaze’ secondary glazing on all windows
- Draft reduction through double doors to attic (& letter box!), heavy curtains,
- New condensing boiler, replaced old 15-20 year old boiler. TRVs added.
- Two wood burning stoves (‘Clearview Vision’ in living room heats whole house)
- 2 x 2m2 solar panels for thermal hot water with large well insulated tank (‘AOS Solar’)
- Continuous running low energy heat recovery fan in bathroom (‘Vent Axia – Lo Carbon’)
- Low energy lighting throughout
- Water saving devices include; low flow shower, low flow washers in most taps
- Living wall, pond and vegetables in garden plus pallet shed with green roof.
Virtual tour here.
Alexandra Park Road
1930s terraced house which has been retrofitted for improved energy efficiency.
- converted loft has been been insulated on its interior roof
- internal wall insulation added to the front wall
- Sustainable building materials including lime plaster have been used
- Heating is by a modern boiler with weather compensating controls,
- solar thermal panels for hot water
- woodburning stove.
Yewtree Close, London N10
A timber-framed detached home built in the 1980s with the following carbon saving features:
- Argon filled 12mm double glazing in aluminium frames (except on south side)
- Kingspan “Thermwall”, 100mm rigid, foiled insulation, new ply board with sealed joints
- Celotex GA400 100mm rigid roof insulation with foil backing
- Celotex GA400 100mm rigid floor insulation with foil backing
- New windows and door draught sealed
- Air source heat pumps for underfloor heating and hot water
- 16 photo voltaic panels with total 4kW peak
- New high performance wood burning stove
- 100% LED and some compact fluorescent
- Low energy appliances throughout
- Water saving: 1000ltr rainwater butts
- Instant boiling water (no kettle).
Virtual tour here.
Barrington Road, London N8
Semi-detached Edwardian villa modernised to include the following features:
- approach based on maximum insulation, water-saving and use of solar electricity and solar hot water
- 50 mm of external insulation to side gable and extension walls
- 55 mm of internal insulation to front and rear bays
- part of loft floor covered with 270 mm Knauf loftroll, remainder has loftroll inserted to top of joists, and then laid with 50 mm of insulated MDF to form load-bearing surface
- front windows and majority of other windows double-glazed
- installation of new Worcester Bosch condensing boiler
- provision of Uponor underfloor heating (wet system) to ground floor
- installation of RainWater Harvesting rainwater catchment system – supplying 2 toilets & washing machine
- dual flush WCs – giving 3.5 litre and 2.6 litre minimum flushes
- 11W LED ceiling lights provided to wet-room
- PV (Solar Electricity) installation of 12 x 235W ET Solar panels = 2.82 kW
- evacuated tube solar water heater – Barilla Solar DeltaSol C Plus
- all timber certificated as sustainable, and recycled plastic covering to bathroom wall
Hawthorn Road, N8
A terrace house retrofitted as part of the UK Gov Technology Strategy Board funded “Retrofit for the Future”, the challenge was to achieve 80 % reduction in CO2 emitted. The first 18month monitoring shows a reduction of 79% CO2 emissions have been achieved. Where insulation was used internally, natural insulation and materials were specified to ensure the building fabric could continue to ‘breathe’.
- Insulation;- sheeps wool internally to front walls and to roof, wood fibre board to party walls and polystyrene externally to rear walls and floor
- lime plaster
- high performance triple-glazed windows
- a gas condensing boiler suppling a few radiators and back up to a solar thermal roof panel for hot water
- excellent air tightness of 2.08 air changes per hour, ensuring energy is not wasted unnecessarily
- heat recovery ventilation system
- heat recovery to shower waste
- low water use fittings