The Underwood is a project in Greenwich, south London, that showcases how offsite manufacture can deliver net zero carbon affordable houses for local people on time and to budget.
Demonstrating how the delivery of offsite houses does not need to be overly complicated, expensive or time consuming, this project demonstrates that with the right approach, inspiration and motivation, we can achieve net zero carbon affordable housing, using structural insulated panels (SIPs) with limited additional cost above a baseline building regulation compliant scheme and a traditional delivery method.
The client brief was clear from the outset that fuel poverty for their affordable rented tenants was a significant issue, so the houses needed to ensure that residents fuel bills stayed below £200/annum and achieving net zero carbon was a priority. The Underwood provides eight houses for affordable rent for the local community. Seven of the houses are two-bedroom (four person) and one is a fully wheelchair adapted (Building Regs M4(3)) three-bedroom (five person) house. All the houses exceed the Nationally Described Space Standards, and all the two bedroom homes also meet building regulation M4(2).
The team developed a concept that would create a friendly and welcoming street for the new residents with the principle of a terrace of houses with the ground floor kitchen windows overlooking the street and the living room facing the garden. The external works are shared surfaces with planting and trees to the south boundary. The project has been warmly welcomed by the existing local community and by the new residents moving in. It is an ‘ordinary’ project that countless local authorities, housing associations and developers are grappling with. But for this project, the approach to the advantages of offsite manufacture, energy and sustainability by the client and the team have made it an extraordinary project that should be seen as an exemplar of what can be achieved for local people.
The use of offsite manufacture ensured the quality required for upgrading the thermal performance of the fabric and reducing air permeability. The timber SIPs approach provided fabulous thermal efficiency, lightweight ease of handling on a tight site and quality control. The structure has SIPs walls and roofs with enhanced insulation with concrete plank floor to the ground floor and posi-joist floors to the first floor.
The project follows the ‘be lean, be clean, be green’ principles with a fabric first approach. SIPs panels for the internal wall construction enabled the team to uprate the thermal performance of the walls and significantly reduce the air permeability of the houses. Triple glazed windows and doors complete the fabric first improvements, with clean energy created by using air source heat pumps (ASHP) for the heating and hot water and mechanical ventilation heat recovery to reduce the amount of heating required. Photovoltaic panels on the roofs provide electricity to offset the usage from the ASHPs
By using offsite methods, the project went through planning to handover in circa 18 months, significantly reducing the traditional design programme. All the houses delivered are social rented affordable accommodation for local residents on the housing list. Cllr Anthony Okereke, Cabinet Member for Housing, The Royal Borough of Greenwich, said: “This development is an excellent example of the new generation of council homes we are creating with our Greenwich Builds programme. Being net zero carbon, these homes not only fulfil our commitment to tackling the climate emergency but will also address fuel poverty for our social rented tenants by reducing electricity bills. We are delighted with how the architectural design has transformed a disused garage site into innovative and much needed council homes for local people on our housing waiting list.”
For more information visit: www.fusearchitects.co.uk
ZERO CARBON HOMES A REALITY
A first-of-its-kind partnership between a technology company and a SME housebuilder will see the delivery of highly energyefficient homes that will save consumers hundreds of pounds on household bills every year.
As part of the multi-million pound deal, Etopia Group will provide Midlands-based housebuilder Rippon Homes with its Powered by Etopia (PBE) system on several sites. This will involve Etopia Group providing pre-manufactured panels to site that will form a home’s structure – such as walls, roof and flooring. Rippon Homes, which has a 750-home pipeline, will then be able to design a property’s facade how they wish.
The proprietary technology enables homes to be incredibly airtight and energy-efficient, meaning they qualify for green mortgages, such as those offered by Barclays. These efficiencies – the homes will have at least an 88 EPC rating – will translate into huge savings on energy bills and mortgage repayments for consumers. If consumers opt to install solar panels on their homes, an EPC rating of 104 will be able to be achieved, effectively making it energy positive.
The announcement comes as annual energy bills are due to rise by up to £700 from 1 April, with Ofgem raising the price cap last month in response to soaring wholesale gas prices. The Bank of England has also raised interest rates to 0.5 percent, seeing monthly bills jump immediately for households on standard variable and tracker-rate mortgages.
Under new rules, newbuild homes constructed from 2021 are required to reduce emissions by 31 percent in preparation for the 2025 Future Homes Standard which, as set out by the Ministry for Housing, will require fossil fuel heating systems, such as gas boilers, to be replaced by low-carbon heating solutions such as air source heat pumps and solar panels.
“Helping SME housebuilders, who don’t always have the resources and capacity to innovate, has never been more critical as the UK continues to tackle the climate and housing crisis,” said Joseph Daniels, founder and CEO of Etopia Group. “We’re already seeing some of the UK’s largest lenders offer interest-rate reductions on loans if they meet social and environmental milestones, such as Lloyds’ Clean Growth Fund. In addition, with homebuyers increasingly being incentivised to purchase energy efficient properties by some mortgage lenders via cashback offers, such as those recently launched by Nationwide and NatWest, the PbE system’s green credentials have huge cost-saving implications for the end user.”
All homes can achieve an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating well-above the highest category of ‘A’. In the UK, only 1% of newbuilds are ‘A’ rated, while the average rating is ‘D’. They can help contractors, developers and housing providers deliver up to 2,000 net-zero homes a year, with low-carbon technologies – such as electric vehicle charging points, air source heat pumps and solar panels available.
For more information visit: www.projectetopia.com
Read the full article, go to Offsite Magazine
