{"id":5057,"date":"2018-12-04T01:41:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T01:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/the-terraced-house-inside-a-laboratory\/"},"modified":"2018-12-04T01:41:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T01:41:46","slug":"the-terraced-house-inside-a-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/the-terraced-house-inside-a-laboratory\/","title":{"rendered":"The terraced house inside a laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"SalfordImage copyright<\/span>
\n Salford University<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n A perfectly ordinary terraced house – except it’s inside a laboratory
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In order to help the UK meet its energy reduction goals, scientists have dismantled a terraced house and rebuilt it inside a laboratory. The aim is to look for ways of making the rest of the country’s homes greener, cheaper and warmer.<\/p>\n

Richard Fitton, lead researcher on the University of Salford’s Energy House, spends a lot of time in a small red-brick terraced house. He turns the television on, he adjusts the thermostat, he opens and closes drawers, and draws the curtains.<\/p>\n

But this typical Victorian-era home isn’t where he lives, it’s where he works. The building has been carefully taken apart and rebuilt inside a chamber at the university’s School of the Built Environment. And this house could be key to helping Britain meet its energy reduction goals. <\/p>\n

“You could be saving 60% or 70% of your energy bills year-on-year. You’ll also end up with a more comfortable house, a house that’s easier to heat and where the acoustics will be better,” he tells BBC Radio 5 live’s Wake Up to Money programme<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Salford University<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Scientists use the house as a test-bed for energy conservation experiments
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The house itself is simultaneously normal and bizarre. Normal because it’s an everyday end-of-terrace, a common sight in every town and city. <\/p>\n

Bizarre because it’s built in the centre of a large, pipe-filled laboratory, where a team of white-coated scientists freeze it, heat it and soak it with rainwater as they test the best ways to conserve energy.<\/p>\n

“[It’s] a large environmental chamber, arguably a large fridge. We can make the conditions in there change according to the weather we’re looking at, so we can take it down to -12C or we can put it up to 3C,” says Dr Fitton.<\/p>\n

The house isn’t occupied during testing; it’s dotted with white cylinders that give off the same amount of energy as a person. But if someone were to move in, they would find everything they need.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Salford University<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Even though it’s inside a laboratory, this is a working kitchen
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Everything works, the TV, the fridge, the DVD player,” he explains. “They all have to work to generate the correct amounts of energy and generate the correct amount of heat.”<\/p>\n

Much of the research carried out by the Salford team highlights how much can be saved just by changing our behaviour. For instance, drawing the curtains across a single glazed window can save around 20% of the heat normally lost.<\/p>\n

Controlling the boiler by turning down thermostats or turning off unused radiators can lead to savings of around 40%. <\/p>\n

And the house can demonstrate the significant savings that can be made with retrofitting. <\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Salford University<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
\n
\n The Energy House lies on the fictional Joule Terrace in the lab
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Heat rises and that’s a big problem with heat loss in buildings,” says Dr Fitton. “If we take a typical 100mm (4in) of insulation, which a lot of people have got in their lofts, and we upgrade that to 270mm (10in) we can make about a 5% saving.”<\/p>\n

Because the lab is capable of measuring tiny changes in energy use and efficiency, some of the savings it can demonstrate are simply not worth the effort.<\/p>\n

“[The colour] of the walls makes a difference to how the wall absorbs and transmits heat. A black wall will absorb heat more than a white wall and a silver wall will reflect heat.”<\/p>\n

So should we be painting rooms silver in our quest for greener homes? “You’re not going to notice any considerable differences so I wouldn’t advise it.”<\/p>\n

About 30% of the energy used in the UK is used within homes and a fifth of those homes are similar to the Energy House, meaning that without extensive upgrades they are draughty and very inefficient. <\/p>\n

Most new-build homes benefit from the latest developments in energy-saving technology, and are typically \u00a3629 a year cheaper to run than older properties.<\/p>\n

That’s why the Salford scientists want to test ways to upgrade existing, older housing stock – to lower energy bills, to create warmer homes and to cut emissions. <\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Thicker loft insulation can save 5% on energy bills
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A home like the Energy House that has not been upgraded could be made significantly more energy-efficient but only with considerable investment.<\/p>\n

“To make substantial savings involves things like floor insulation, wall insulation, new windows and doors,” says Dr Fitton. <\/p>\n

“That doesn’t come cheap, that package of work might be \u00a315,000 to \u00a316,000 but ultimately you’ll be saving 60-70% of your energy bills, year-on-year.”<\/p>\n

Such savings could make a huge difference to some of the poorest households in the UK if they could access them.<\/p>\n

The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) says that improving energy efficiency could permanently reduce typical household energy bills by \u00a3300 a year and lift nine out of 10 UK homes out of fuel poverty.<\/p>\n

It could also be key to meeting tough emissions targets. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Image copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Some 26 million homes will need work on them if the UK is to meet its target for cutting carbon dioxide emissions
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Julie Hirigoyen, chief executive of the UKGBC, has expressed concern that the country is not doing enough to retrofit older homes. <\/p>\n

She said earlier this year: “To achieve our national carbon target of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050, we will need to improve almost all of the UK’s 26 million homes with energy-efficiency retrofits. <\/p>\n

“That means we need to retrofit more than 1.5 homes every minute between now and 2050!”<\/p>\n

Salford’s terraced-home-in-a-lab is demonstrating exactly what work is needed.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Image copyright Salford University Image caption A perfectly ordinary terraced house – except it’s inside a laboratory In order to help the UK meet its energy reduction goals, scientists have dismantled a terraced house and rebuilt it inside a laboratory. The aim is to look for ways of making the rest of the country’s homes … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}