Matthew Rees and Phillip Morris, from Bristol’s Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE), report on the completion of the first of a 15 home freedom from fuel poverty project in Bath, that retrofits hard to treat properties with solid wall insulation and renewable energy measures.
For years, loft and cavity wall insulation has been the mainstay of local and national schemes to help improve energy efficiency and reduce fuel bills. Hundreds of thousands of households across the country have been helped in this way, with CSE at the forefront of much of this work in Bristol and Somerset.
However there are many other older homes – built without cavity walls – which require different measures to achieve improved energy performance standards. In particular need are those living in solid-walled properties suffering from fuel poverty. In many cases these are elderly people on low, fixed incomes who simply cannot afford to heat even modestly sized homes adequately.
Bath and North East Somerset Council’s ‘Freedom from Fuel Poverty’ project may go some way to help. This scheme, managed by CSE, focuses on providing free solid wall insulation, solar hot water or solar photovoltaic systems to those people living in fuel poverty.
In May 2010, the first such property, in Claverton Down on the outskirts of Bath, was treated with solid wall insulation as part of the scheme. The owner described it as, “smart” and admitted he was “looking forward to the benefits the work will bring next winter.”
The Bath and Bristol city region has a particularly high proportion of hard-to-treat solid-walled properties ( around 50% of the homes in Bristol) which aren’t currently suitable for mainstream insulation schemes. The UK won’t meet its tough carbon reduction targets without addressing these properties, yet there is currently very little on offer to help the owners and tenants of these ‘hard-to-treat’ buildings.
Solid wall properties were mainly built prior to the 1920’s and have no cavity between walls to help reduce the heat loss from the home. Around 1 in 4 homes across the UK have solid walls.
For more information about similar schemes call your local Energy Saving Trust advice centre (0800 512 012).
The first completed CSE solid wall insulation at Claverton Down in Bath
Is there a link to give information on the technical aspects of this project?
‘Bath project on solid-wall insulation and renewable energy’