Tag: UK

Flexidry Enhancing Energy Efficiency For Modernahus, The New Green Housing Solution For The Uk

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ModernaHus, the new generation of energy efficient green homes for the UK, will have 9500sm of its underfloor heating screeded with FlexiDry F1/7 day dry floor screed.

ModernaHus is being introduced in the UK after long trials by Scandinavian builders, Skanska. This innovative green home solution has already been adapted by several countries across Europe, and has been in the test phase in the UK for several years.

After two years of trials and considerable adaptation to suit the UK market and environment, the ModernaHus UK project is now underway and is scheduled for completion by October 2011.

The first phase of the ModernaHus UK project will comprise of 108 one to four bedroom residential units, in a rejuvenated site in Coldharbor Lane, Brixton. A good majority of the construction elements will be manufactured offsite and delivered to the site, ready for installation. This prefabricated building system has been found to be successful in bringing down the effective construction time while ensuring site safety as well as quality and finish of the products.

For energy efficiency, ModernaHus combines a well insulated building envelope, under floor heating, ground source heat pumps, solar panels and a central biomass boiler. The ModernaHus homes which will be 30% more efficient than normal homes, has obtained the Code for Sustainable Homes, Level 4.

With energy efficiency figuring as the priority for modern buildings, FlexiDry fast drying floor screeds is one of the screeds that is very much in demand by most major builders. When underfloor heating system can enhance energy efficiency, the use of the right screed is found to compound its effectiveness by acting as a thermal mass to dissipate the heat. FlexiDry floor screeds act as very good thermal conductors of heat and cut down the thermal losses and reduce the amount of heat required at the source. With an efficiency of 20-30% more than the normal anhydrite screeds, and drying times as less as 3 days to 21 days, FlexiDry is currently the chosen name for most of the major projects like ModernaHus.

Domestic Energy Assessors Help Homeowners Show the Energy Efficiency of Their Homes When Selling

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There is a new breed of professionals who you will get to know about now when you start out to sell your home. They are called Domestic Energy Assessors and are out now in England and Wales performing a brand new service.

The role of the Domestic Energy Assessor is to produce Energy Performance Certificates for inclusion in Home Information Packs. If this is complete news to you then just think of these as being certificates, like those you see on new fridges, which will provide A-G ratings on the energy efficiency of a home, plus advice on how to make further energy savings.

Energy Assessors will use their in-depth knowledge and practical understanding of the thermal performance of your home to judge on the thermal energy efficiency of properties.

This requirement has been introduced by the UK government working on the theory that these assessments of the the capability of all buildings about to be sold will encourage us all to be energy efficient. This will be good for the nation as it will be thoroughly green. It will the idea is, help avoid the need for the energy whether renewable or not.

This type of certificate is required whenever the building is constructed, sold or rented.

In the short term home owners directly, and home buyers indirectly, will need to pay for these Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and in order to possibly carry out work to improve poorly insulated properties, they will need to pay for general advice to clients on energy efficiency measures.

This is all very good in principle, but the UK government has chosen exactly the wrong time to do this. The credit crunch is hitting the house sales market hard, it is already very difficult to sell properties, and the value of most of them is falling.

The staff that produce Energy Performance Certificates are very experienced in construction technology, building condition surveying and domestic energy assessment and are Degree qualified professionals. They do not come cheap!

Now we do accept that most assessors will not simply stop at inspecting your property, they should also take the time to explain exactly what they are inspecting, how they are going to go about it and gladly answer any questions that you may have. But, most sellers are going to deeply object to being forced by the state to take on this additional burden of cost.

The energy assessor takes measurements to analyse the cost of heating, water and lighting for a house and makes recommendations to improve the energy performance of the house. To me it looks like you the government may think that an assessment is a quick hour in the property and thats it. I doubt they have fully considered the travel time to and from the houses to be assessed, time taken to assess, time to prepare and check the report, input the data, produce the certificate and then charge a fee which includes the professionals insurance, accountant fees, advertising and many other costs – the list goes on and on, after all they will have to make a living like everyone else.