Power of saving

As winter rolls on with cold temperatures continuing to push our energy bills higher, how we can make our homes more efficient?

From simple money-saving solutions to housebuilding techniques, Your Move explores what it takes to turn a property green.

Whether your bank balance is recovering from a costly end to 2015, or you’ve made a resolution to be thrifty throughout the coming year, being energy efficient can significantly improve your finances.

But with so many ways to reduce emissions at home, with options ranging from simple to drastic, what’s the best way to make a meaningful change?

Well it recently emerged that one Merseyside homeowner had achieved the ultimate success, keeping heating, lighting, hot water and cooking energy bills at just £15 per year.

Colin Usher, director of Liverpool-based John McCall Architects with a long interest in environmental science, designed the West Kirby property he shares with his wife and insists such a saving is down to a range of eco-friendly elements working together in the house.

“Lots of people have asked me ‘what’s the one thing that makes the difference?’ and the answer is there is no one thing,” says Colin, who was able to recently confirm the low annual costs of running the newly-built property after living there for two years.

“I’ve done a bit of everything and every single aspect of the design of the house contributes to its success, either by making it very low energy to run or to make sure it doesn’t overheat.”

Colin’s home was created for a target cost of £240,000, a price said to be in line with other more affordable private bespoke homes the architect practice has worked on.

“You can spend a lot of money doing this but what I wanted to do was not spend a lot of money, partly because I don’t have a huge amount but also because I wanted to show it’s possible to do something quite sensible but still achieve these terrific results just by thinking it through really carefully,” says Colin.

Achieving eco success

So what are the secrets to such high energy efficiency?

A focus on orientation, insulation, air tightness and thermal mass saw Colin produce an eco friendly home which remains at a comfortable temperature through summer and winter and doesn’t allow drafts despite incorporating plenty of windows.

For instance, large triple-glazed windows are positioned on the south side to attract warmth from the sun, while enough windows to naturally light up the home are included on the north side.

A large amount of insulation, including a bed of insulation beneath the house, works alongside a design to seal the property “like a Tupperware box”.

“If you insulate a house without sealing it properly you’re wasting an awful lot of time but because its sealed up so well you’ve got to have a ventilation system otherwise you’d eventually run out of air and it would also feel muggy,” explains Colin.

Therefore the house, which is largely built out of concrete to retain a comfortable temperature, uses a ventilation system which takes moist air from the bathrooms and kitchen and then blows fresh air into living spaces.

Velux windows above an 8.6 metre-high stairwell can also be opened in the summer to release hot air which rises up through the whole of the house.

Counting the costs

Colin insists smart spending allowed the house to be built within an average price bracket.

“We spent money on making this very low energy and then we made some careful decisions about other aspects of the house,” he says.

“Where some people might have put down oak flooring we used bamboo, which is much more sustainable than oak as it’s basically made out of grass.

“It’s very good with under-floor heating and very stable and robust; it’s a strange self-healing material.”

Filled travertine also took the place of more expensive marble in the bathrooms to provide a similar appearance at a lower cost.

Such an approach to housebuilding could be possible among developers who mass produce homes during projects, according to the architect.

“You might not put so much insulation in – I’ve possibly gone to an extreme end of that – but I think if you do everything well then it’s perfectly possible for us to get a better performance out of our mass produced homes.

“Modern building regulations, in comparison to past ones, are very good but you can still do better.

“I think some of that’s down to a willingness to do it as it takes a bit more effort and thinking about it to create a really well sealed up house, and then you have to think about how you’re going to run the ventilation system.

“That’s the sort of thing people think is going to be expensive but if it’s designed as part of the fabric of the building from the start it’s not such an issue.”

Making improvements

While much energy efficiency has been achieved through the construction of Colin’s home, existing properties aren’t a lost cause when it comes to cutting energy usage.

Solar panels, for instance, can be added to homes and are too making an active contribution to offsetting energy costs in the £15 per year house, as from their position on the south facing roof they generate power to sell back to the grid.

The impact of far simpler alterations shouldn’t be overlooked either, such as reconsidering whether it is really necessary to keep a letterbox on the front door or adding thermal lining to curtains.

“If you have patio doors I strongly recommend you add a good quality thermal lining to your curtains because patio doors go right to the ground and they’re a big area of heat loss even if they’re double glazed,” suggests Colin, who even uses such methods across his triple glazed windows as the effects are positive.

“The time when you lose the most heat out of [those windows] is at night time and if you close a quality curtain that comes right to the ground you’ll probably half that heat loss.”

Aside from trimming energy costs, Colin hopes more efficiency measures are taken on board to address the impact of climate change.

Significant areas of the UK spent Christmas and New Year tackling floods which are reportedly believed by scientists to have been partly caused by man-made climate change – a stark warning that more needs to be done.

“I feel quite unhappy that this wasn’t addressed 30 years ago because most of the technology I’ve used in my house was available 30 years ago and we could have been building to this standard.

“We can’t change the past but we can change the future and I feel if we can, by taking very simple steps, help people improve their houses then I’m keen for that to be done.”