12 RUTH TALKS
O’Brien does not want to pre-empt the results of the studies, but he is certain that the essential is not to start ‘greening’ your building with renewables, but to begin by addressing insulation and air leakage. Only then should you top up your performance with renewables. Commonsense, perhaps, but O’Brien says ‘People don’t understand air tightness, how to put measures in.’ In his time as a self-employed builder, he was amazed just how much of his time he spent ‘shopping’ – i.e. at the builder’s merchants - and he says that builders’ merchants are now cottoning on to being a one-stop shop, even offering free breakfasts. So they would, he thinks, be the ideal place to offer ‘toolbox talks’, reaching out to builders.
The stable block will become an information centre as well, pulling together results from all the schemes . And because it will be too small for the ambition of the project, there will be a larger centre at Stoke on Trent, the Centre for Refurbishment Excellence. The idea is to train the trainers, and O’Brien hopes that this could lead to an NVQ in refurbishment. ‘I think if builders know the right methods they will use them,’ he says. ‘But a lot of people don’t understand. If we don’t explain why they are doing something, they won’t do it.’
Although making buildings more energy- efficient is key, the stable block will also be used to demonstrate techniques of refurbishing for climate change, and also for ‘assisted living’ where houses can be wired up to allow regular monitoring from home of ongoing medical conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
A building in Hungtindonshire, built in the 1960s of cavity wall construction, was one of the refurbishment projects
O’Brien, who has been at BRE since May 2008, is loving this latest career change. After three or four years as a builder, he joined what became the One Housing Group, providing community housing in Camden, north London. He went through a variety of roles, eventually delivering ‘asset management’ which meant responsibility for maintaining properties but also deciding when to sell off buildings when their upkeep would be too costly. ‘I wanted to do something more on the sustainable side of things,’ he said, and BRE allows him to do that.
The scale of the problem should not be underestimated. Figures from the Energy Saving Trust show that Britain has the oldest housing stock in the world, with 8.5 million homes over 60 years old. At the current rate of replacement the average life of a house will be 1,000 years. If our housing stock is to be fit for purpose in a changing world, then the work of somebody like O’Brien, who is not only eager for change but also interested in the minutiae of making it possible, will be essential.
The Victorian stable block at the BRE headquarters, ready for improvement
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