Wates Living Space appointed on UK Energy Saving Pilot in Surrey

24 August, 2010

Wates Living Space is working in partnership with Raven Housing Trust to deliver a ‘Retrofit for the Future’ project in Surrey, funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB).

Funded by the Government for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, the initiative is aimed at improving the efficiency of UK’s older housing stock and to meet future targets in the reduction of CO2 emissions and energy use.

Paul Davies, Sustainable Technologies Manager for Wates Living Space, said: “Whilst we have, as an industry, been focusing on increasing energy efficiency standards applicable to new housing, currently little is being done to improve the efficiency of the 26 million existing homes we have. These projects will test how some of the new techniques and technologies can be applied to the homes we currently use”

“We need to find a way to retrofit these new technologies into older homes to ensure we have an opportunity to significantly reducing the UK’s carbon footprint.”

Claire Lipop, Raven’s sustainability environment manager comments:

“We are delighted to have received funding to deliver this project and to be working with Wates Living Space and PRP Architects Ltd who are managing this important project on our behalf.”

“We hope to gather a lot of learning from the different systems with a view to possibly rolling this out to more of our stock”.

Wates will work with Raven Housing Trust to install a ground source heat pump, PV, mechanical ventilation heat recovery, solar thermal system and a range of energy efficiency measures to a 1930s property in Redhill. This will significantly improve upon the efficiency of the residents’ existing heating system, saving hundreds of pounds on household bills every year.

David Bott, Director of Innovation Programmes for the Technology Strategy Board, explained: "At least 60% of the houses UK residents will live in by 2050 have already been built; so it is critical that we look at ways to dramatically improve the environmental performance and impact of our existing housing stock. 

“Retrofit for the Future provides the testbed we need to ensure the implementation of long-term solutions.  This initiative has seen the retrofit market come together, with social landlords, local councils, architects and other specialist suppliers, developing a range of high performance and cost effective prototype solutions."

All retrofit projects will act as a demonstrator house which will be monitored by the Energy Saving Trust for a minimum of two years and assessed for potential large scale implementation in the UK’s existing social housing stock.

The data collected from each of the retrofitted houses, including internal and external temperature, humidity and CO2 levels, will be assimilated and available to researchers, social landlords and energy companies to ensure that the most cost-effective technologies are employed in future retrofits.

 Paul Davies added: “The Retrofit for the Future pilot will have massive implications for the future of social and private housing it’s very exciting time to be involved”

To download this press release as a pdf click here

Categories: refurbishment, affordable housing, national

Tags: Raven Housing Trust, Retrofit