Articles

George Clarke looks at the huge challenge to make existing homes zero-carbon
There are nearly 67 million people living in 25 million dwellings in Britain. In our temperate climate, all these homes need heating and hot water and they also need power to keep the lights on.
That means they need energy and that energy, most of the time, comes from fossil fuels. Things are beginning to change, but UK housing has a massive dependancy on fossil fuels.
Yet we live in a country where over 2.5 million currently live in fuel poverty.
What does the future hold for those in fuel poverty and the rest of Britain when household energy bills are predicted to increase by up to 50% from April?

Moisture, such as steam, vapour or water droplets can accumulate in our buildings over time. James Ayres, co-founder and operations director, Lime Green Products Ltd, explains why considering moisture build-up is so important and explores what measures you can take to help drying out.

Moisture in properties

Moisture can accumulate in a variety of ways in homes, workplaces and properties. It’s inevitable, with two active people in a home estimated to produce over 13 litres of moisture per day, through breathing and activities, such as boiling a kettle, showering and drying clothes. This is in addition to moisture, as a result of driving rain or building defects, that can enter the building fabric in solid wall buildings.

A new name is emerging in the nascent spray foam insulation industry. Huntsman Building Solutions, part of the global chemicals giant, Huntsman Corporation, has been formed following the acquisition of three existing spray foam brands – Demilec, Lapolla and market leading UK and Republic of Ireland based system, Icynene.

The merging of these three brands under the Huntsman Building Solutions [HBS] title creates an organisation designed to bring innovative solutions to the market which had principally offered only traditional forms of building insulants such as mineral wool and rigid board-type products.

INCA, the Insulated Render and Cladding Association, is celebrating its 40th year and is now established as the leading organisation representing the external wall insulation industry. Technical standards and excellent workmanship are core to INCA’s values, with the annual INCA Awards event highlighting the best projects from the industry completed in the previous 12 months. The winning projects demonstrated a wide range of completed projects in both the refurbishment and new build sectors including many local authority and social housing schemes using a wide range of innovative finishes.

You know things are changing when Evan Davis on Radio 4’s ‘PM’ programme starts talking about Air Source Heat Pumps. Yep, that’s exactly what happened on my radio yesterday.
Evan Davis did a long feature on heat pumps and even visited a home that had one installed.
Unfortunately, he went to a big posh house in London where the install costs they mentioned were massive and over a third over the cost of a typical 4-bedroom house installation, so I’m worried his feature may have inadvertently put people off.
Anyway, Evan is going to be talking about heat pumps again tonight and over the next few days, which is all very exciting for us heat pump fans.
So why is he talking about this? Because things are changing and they are changing pretty fast. At last!
For me, the rate of change hasn’t been fast enough or big enough, but things are definitely happening. The next few months are massive for the UK and for the global green economy.

Energy theft is a serious problem for housing associations and there are a number of reasons for this. In this article we will focus on the theft of electricity, though tampering with gas supplies and meters can have devastating consequences if a leak causes an explosion.
Interfering with electricity supplies and meters can be extremely dangerous. Electric shock can cause burns, injury or death, not only for the culprit but also cohabitants, neighbours, future tenants, housing association staff and contractors. As they are landlords, housing associations have a statutory responsibility for electrical safety as well as a duty to prevent personal injury caused by defects in the property. They also have a duty of care towards staff and contractors.