Standing on the grounds of the University of Salford in the UK is Energy House 2.0 an innovative research centre helping to accelerate progress towards low carbon and net zero housing design at scale. Source: Timberbiz
The £16m research lab, part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), is the largest facility of its type, containing two environmental chambers each able to accommodate two detached houses.
Harnessing the University of Salford’s expertise and knowledge of the built environment, the chambers can recreate a wide variety of weather conditions, with temperatures ranging between -20˚C to +40˚C, as well as simulating wind, rain, snow and solar radiation.
Inside Energy House 2.0, Barratt and Saint-Gobain are building a home – known as eHome2 – to test products at a range of temperatures and weather conditions to replicate predicted changes in the climate.
The built environment accounts for 40% of the UK’s carbon footprint. Therefore, to achieve the Government’s carbon reduction targets, the UK will require a step-change in the design of new homes.
Barratt and Saint-Gobain are working together to create a blueprint for future homes, including working in partnership to develop new products that will enable housebuilders to provide the low carbon homes that the country needs.
The eHome2 is being built with an advanced timber frame solution that uses engineered timber studs. This enables us to create a building that will be future proof and hit the 2025 Future Homes Standard fabric targets. The walls will be pre-insulated and have the windows installed at the factory. The exterior will be of light weight render based bricks by Weber that enable the house to be built in 12-14 weeks – half the time it takes to build a standard home.
This facility will build on the success of the Zed House, the first Zero Carbon concept house built in partnership with the University of Salford. Zed House was built to reduce carbon by 125%. Barratt will be looking to take the lessons learnt from the Zed House to integrate new and improved technologies to the Energy House 2.0 house.
