We have now completed the retrofit of the houses, and hopefully you’ll agree they’re looking great.
Front of the completed properties
The rear of the completed properties
The existing tenants of number 30, Mr & Mrs Morton, have already moved back in and are enjoying their new home. Newark and Sherwood Homes are advertising for tenants for number 28, which was previously void.
The houses will now be monitored for 2 years to see how they really perform. The monitoring includes:
- Temperature and relative humidity in 3 rooms of the house (sitting room, bedroom 1 & bedroom 2)
- External temperature
- CO2 level in the sitting room
- Total water and electricity consumption
- Electricity consumption on 8 individual sub-circuits
All this data is being monitored automatically and transmitted to a central database at 5 minute intervals, and we can view it real-time via a website.
We are also hoping to do additional monitoring on the properties, and are in discussion with a couple of universities about the possibiliity of collaborating on this.
Meters, meters and more meters!
We hope you’ve enjoyed our blog so far, and watch this space for more news of post occupancy evaluation …
It would have been very interesting to see before and after pictures, so we can better assess the changes.
The test of loft insultation must be in part that it can still be used by occupants – otherwise storage space must be provided elsewhere (as you have done), occupiers will not be keen to insulate lofts, and many tenants will in any case cut through a new loft access point so they can use the remaining space.
If we are to catch up with the massive energy efficiency programme which is needed, we need to show that insulated lofts are not lost to storage needs.
Did you consider the installation of solar PV to meet the electrical needs of the houses, which will almost certainly be higher than theoretical calculations would suggest, assuming that windows and doors will be opened from time to time to aid natural ventilation. This could provide an income from FiTs which could be retained by the Housing Association or passed to tenants, and ensure incidentally that retrofitted houses contribute in a small way to renewable energy targets.
Regards,
Peter Fane MRICS
Hello Peter,
I would like to know further about the monitoring protocol… I attended a Master in Energy Management (2011-2012) and worked on a start-up at the same time… I would like to monitor the performance of buildings before and after a thermal envelope retrofit… For electricity consumption I have used EnviR…
Frank Pulido
(Barcelona – Spain)