Opening doors to low energy refurbishment
SuperHome Database
London, Kingston-upon-Thames, Willingham Way
House Summary
Owner(s):
Damon Hart-DavisHouse Type:
Late '60s ex-council wood-framed end-terrace houseCarbon saving:
62%Reported saving on bills:
100% (zero carbon and overall bills with FiT payments)
Measures installed:
- Double glazing throughout, upgrading some to triple glazing
- Internal dry lining wall insulation with Aerogel (40mm in living room, 30mm first part done for children's bedrooms)
- 250—300mm + insulated loft boards
- Insulated above living room ceiling, below rear bedrooms
- Single-room MHRV system in bathroom
- Gas combi boiler with TRVs everywhere, timer used
- 5.2kWp photo voltaic panels
- Low energy lighting throughout
- Low energy appliances throughout
- Water saving devices include; dual-flush WC, water widget for shower, water-efficient wet kitchen appliances
Upcoming events
What visitors are saying
“Very knowledgeable host - great detail and good descriptions/dialogue. Keen to explore more from the website. ""Friendly welcome and very informative talk."
"A very interesting thing was how good his lounge triple and double glazed windows and doors were in respect that the surface temperature of the glass on what was a very cold day could almost be described as warm!"
"Very helpful, friendly and instructive!"
Personal story:
I’ve crunched my carbon footprint, and I’ve pondered other things that I might do, but most of all I’ve had quite a lot of fun learning. Maybe it’s my engineering mindset, but I’ve made a hobby out of conservation and meter watching, and had fun out of ‘tuning’ my life a little.
You’ll find the story of my renovation on my website. There’s a comprehensive costed list of improvements made plus a series of four articles covering my experience of aerogel insulation and solar PV, monitoring and continually improving the performance of my house [1] [2] [3] [4].
See www.earth.org.uk for more.
The photo page right shows Edward Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, during a visit to my SuperHome, looking at aerogel. Ed is also MP for Kingston and Surbiton.
Motivations:
A few years ago I suddenly saw my energy bills as another performance metric that I could tweak. In fact, this whole area is full of numbers and graphs and science and gadgets and interesting techie puzzles. From aerogel and LEDs to iButtons and thermal imaging, you should see some of the fun I’ve been having!
Also see:
www.earth.org.ukBenefits of work carried out:
1) My home and office electricity bill is about £190 per year on a premium all-green tariff. Gas is about £290 per year as of 2012, for me and my young family. I am saving over £1000 a year on my energy bills and I may be able to continue to cut waste faster than energy rates rise, so my bills could keep falling.
2) The living room is much warmer in winter (and cooler in summer) and less draughty and more comfortable. It’s the safe warm focus of the home.*
3) All these energy efficiency improvements have given us the opportunity to improve the decor and lighting more than we might otherwise have done.
4) The PV has also been excellent: maintenance free, taking us carbon neutral or negative for energy, and covering all our energy bills from FiT payments so effectively eliminating them.
* This was achieved by putting a door back in from the corridor, replacing the old and failing patio doors, adding thick curtains with solar reflective blackout blinds and installing aerogel dry lining.
Project update:
2012/11/26: installed Lo-carbon Tempra P MHRV fan for the kitchen.
2013/03/01: Heating now in several ‘soft’ zones c/o OpenTRV project (opentrv.org.uk).
Updated on 01/03/2013