Social housing supplement Technology and skills

Renewable technologies have already started to fall into disrepair because of a lack of skills in the industry.

and the other for hot water. We can then sell people the idea of central control of their heating and overcome the resistance to what we think will become the norm in housing refurbishment. Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council was keen to

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We explained to the tenants that experiences elsewhere have shown that it is not possible to control central heating systems in super-insulated homes well enough to avoid over-heating and that there would be times when they would be throwing their windows open during winter, wasting fuel they had to pay for. In two properties, older, single, people declined the internal works and were left with their gas fi res. In the 15-month post completion monitoring, we were proved right. Those tenants who had insisted on central heating admitted that they wasted fuel on occasion. The two houses without central heating were

“The Pay-as- You-Save schemes and the Feed-in Tariff are very welcome, but they don’t address some fundamental problems with the market”

perfectly comfortable. We made absolutely sure in these two cases because both occupants suffered from respiratory problems and any under-performance could have had dire consequences. As a result we identified an obvious gap in the

controls market: we need remote time and temperature control of gas-fi red appliances; one for space heating

deploy renewable technologies in the Norwood Road refurbishment project. With only half the dwellings having south-facing roof slopes, we offered a mixture of solar water heating, recycling of grey-water or rain- water harvesting. However, the lack of skilled and experienced building services trades to maintain these technologies means that they are gradually falling into disuse. The grey water system was the fi rst to go and the manufacturer who had underspecifi ed the pumps soon went out of business. As we prepare for the mass installation of renewable

technologies, funding initiatives such as the Pay-as-You- Save schemes and the Feed-in Tariff are very welcome, but they don’t address some fundamental problems with the market. In addition to the impending disaster that split responsibility between trades represents, we only have immature and therefore costly technologies available to us. Solar water heating systems cost around £1,200 per house back in the mid 1990s. In spite of grant programmes and extensive roll-out in southern Europe, instead of solar becoming cheaper, it is diffi cult to fi nd a decent installation for less than £3,500 today. Where are the economies of scale in renewables? A long time coming, I think. ●

Richard Baines is director of sustainable development at Black Country Housing Group. In 2009 he was voted Green Social Housing Champion of the Year in the Inside Housing Sustainable Housing Awards.

Case study Norwood Road development, Brierley Hill, Dudley, 2001

Black Country Housing Group worked with Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council to refurbish 22 solid-walled, inter-war, semi-detached properties in Dudley. The partnership upgraded the fabric insulation and replaced failed window frames and render. With 90mm of phenolic foam under the new render, Black Country got the wall U-value below 0.2W/sq m K, insulated under the suspended timber fl oor, topped up the lofts to 350mm and installed passive stack ventilation. These existing ‘hard to treat’ dwellings were super-insulated and smaller than the earlier new-builds at Bryce Road, so the total heat load was similar, even though the fabric insulation was not quite as good. Renewables were then added, but with only half the dwellings having south-facing roof slopes, a mixture of solar water heating, recycling of grey-water or rain-water harvesting was provided. However, because of a lack of skills in the industry, these systems are already falling into disrepair.

In Norwood Road, the fabric of the homes was upgraded to improve energy effi ciency.

8 CIBSE Journal June 2010

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