SELFBUILDER SURVEY: BUILDING A LOW CARBON HOME
BUILDING A LOW CARBON HOME
What were the key reasons for choosing to build your home to high energy effi ciency levels?
W
e need to move from buzzwords on tackling climate change to a focus on urgent action to minimise build- ings’ contribution to the crisis. This has been cement- ed in a legal obligation for the UK to reach net zero emissions in 2050 – and building low carbon homes is a major piece of the puzzle.
Homes contribute around 14% of the UK’s emissions, and
with the escalating price of gas, it’s now self-evident that CO2 minimisation must be at the heart of self-builds. Homeowners have been responding to this major challenge over the years and are increasingly going for low carbon. Gas is even more in the fi ring line as a fossil fuel which is vul- nerable to the effects of continuing confl ict in Eastern Europe. Gas prices have been going up steadily for several months, and the energy companies lifting the price cap in April means a further squeeze on homeowners. Proponents of high performance, low carbon homes believe that heating homes should now even be seen as a luxury, and that ‘carbon-positive’ housing, which can generate more energy than it uses (thanks to a combined approach of renewables plus high quality fabric effi ciency), should be the goal. With Passivhaus held up as the key method to achieving this, homeowners can look forward to a future of exporting
electricity to the grid. It can be great fi nancial news for the owner therefore, as well as the planet. Ultra-effi cient, highly insulated designs will es- chew gas and other fossil fuels, with battery storage powering EV vehicles.
Many self-builders are ahead of the game, but the 2025
Future Homes Standard will require them by law to cut carbon emissions by 75-80% (with an interim 31% cut this year). This will be a challenge for many housebuilders in terms of making the costs stack up for them and their customers. Driven by long-standing sustainability ethics, self-builders have explored everything from straw bale walls and lime mortar to breeze blocks made of hemp. They have also harnessed the potential to oversee all of the design and build elements that self-build offers, to bring the rigour that’s needed to produce air-tight, thermally effi cient results. Common sense suggests an urgent move away from gas heating. However, the mainstream UK housebuilding sector remains wedded to gas boilers, and has yet to fully embrace alternatives such as heat pumps. Natural gas had reached £4.50 a therm by Christmas 2021, and although the UK imports only 4% of its gas from Russia, imports generally provide over half the gas we use, so we are vulnerable to fl uctuations in prices.
PRODUCED IN ASSOCIATION WITH
may/june 2022
www.sbhonline.co.uk 23
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