· Nottingham Energy Partnership Pewsey Vale Environmental Action Team Regather Co-operative Ltd...

Case studies2012-16

Brief descriptions of 30 open homes events heldacross England, some of which were supportedby the Green Open Homes network

www.greenopenhomes.net

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Contents

Brickhill BEE (Bedfordshire)

Carbon Co-op (Manchester)

Catalyst Mutual Enterprise CIC (Birmingham)

Cumbria Action for SustainabilityEnergy AltonEn-form (Colchester)

HadLOW Carbon Community (West Kent)

Exeter Community EnergyLancaster Co-HousingLow Carbon Hub (Oxfordshire)

Low Carbon Lymm (Cheshire)

Low Carbon Trust (West Sussex)

Marches Energy Agency (Notts & Derbys)

Moor Sustainable (Esk Valley)

Muswell Hill Sustainability GroupNorth Dorset District CouncilNottingham Energy PartnershipPewsey Vale Environmental Action TeamRegather Co-operative Ltd (Sheffield)

Support Aylesbury Vale Environment (SAVE)Sustainable FromeThameswey Sustainable CommunitiesHornbeam Environment Centre (Waltham Forest)

Transition StroudTransition Town LoughboroughTransition Town MaidenheadWest Bridgford in TransitionWilton Community Land Trust

Superhomes case studiesSue Roberts in Wallingford, OxfordJohn Gage in Stockport, Manchester

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Number of homes opened: 8

Number of visitors: 60Number of homes opened: 27

Number of visitors: 334

Brickhill BEE (Bedfordshire)

Brickhill BEE EnergyEfficient Homes

The first ever Green Open Homes event inBedfordshire took place on Sunday 26 January. Thegreatest interest was in the homes with air-sourceheat pumps, but even those homes with just solar PVpanels saw local residents taking the chance to findout more.

Mark Fitzpatrick, Chair of the group said: “It was areally positive event, despite the weather. We gotsome useful feedback and many contacts fromresidents who want to be involved in our project toreduce Brickhill’s carbon footprint”.

The event took place in parallel to a ‘Big EnergySaving Show’ which concentrated on givingresidents support on reducing their fuel costs. Energyadvice was provided by the Bedford CAB, BedfordBorough Council and also a local Green Deal Advisor.Other local community groups ran children’sactivities and offered refreshments.

Mark said: “We held the event in January as part ofthe launch of our Brickhill BEE Group. It worked well,but would no doubt be easier when the weather iswarmer. Another lesson for the future is to put moreeffort into providing more in-depth analysis of theenergy data for each home”.



During two weekends of open homes aroundGreater Manchester 27 householders showcased arange of improvements including external andinternal wall insulation, solar panels, triple glazedwindows and energy efficient heating systems.

As well as householders throwing open their doorsto visitors, Carbon Co-op ran a series of bus tourscalling in at specific properties and givingparticipants a chance to chat and exchange views onhow they might go about adopting similarimprovements.

“Thank you for this opportunity, the training hashelped me understand the green energy industryand why it is important to make changes in thehome. I really enjoyed volunteering, the homeowners were very helpful. This experience willdefinitely help me further my career in theenvironmental sector”(Luke Blazejewski, Volunteer)



Carbon Co-op

Eco-homes GreaterManchester

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This was the first time that Catalyst MutualEnterprise had run an open homes event and it wasan exciting opportunity to build on the work theyalready do in Green Deal accreditation, energy advicetraining and energy advice outreach work.

The home openers were very knowledgeable abouttheir properties and demonstrated the savings andbenefits of the measures they had installed such asdraught-proofing, solar thermal, wood burners, andsolar PV including the potential for the feed-in tariff.The talks also included advice and tips on wasterecycling, composting, water management andrainwater harvesting.

The home openers were able to answer all thequestions posed by the keen visitors and on thewhole visitors found the events very inspiring withmany saying they would consider installing some ofthe measures in their own homes.

During the spring of 2014, Cumbria Action forSustainability (CAfS) ran six Green Open Homesevents. Being a large county with a sparsepopulation, each of the events took place in one ofthe six local authority areas on a Saturday. Thisenabled CAfS to focus on specific areas to enablethem to target a wider audience. The premeditateddecision to hold the events on Saturdays enabledthose who work during the week to attend, furtherattracting a larger audience.

The marketing plan for the event utilised a widevariety of activities to promote each of the events toa wide audience and engage those new to greenbuilding. Approaches included press releases tovarious relevant local press; ads in local press;inclusion in newsletters for local sustainability groupsand professional organisations; neighbour invitesgiven to householders; social media and use of theFacebook advertisements; attendance of externalevents to promote Cumbria Green Open Homes andmentions at many other meetings and events.

Catalyst Mutual Enterprise CIC

Birmingham CatalystGreen Homes

Cumbria Action forSustainability

Cumbria Green Build on Tour







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The Energy Alton Green Open Homes day on Sunday9 March was dry and bright in contrast to the wetSunday the weekend before and it just shows thatluck plays a part besides all that planning. The eventorganisers said “We chose a Sunday and feel thiswas the right decision. Overall there was much moreactivity in the afternoon and next time we will beopen for the afternoon and early evening and notthe morning.”

One home was recently built to a high level ofthermal efficiency with biomass boiler, underfloorheating, the latest heating controls, solar PV andsolar thermal. This attracted a lot of interest. Peoplewant to know how houses of the future will operateas well as how to retrofit old houses.

“For groups thinking about it, just do it. There isreally good support available and it will spread yourinfluence and knowledge.”

The Colchester Green Homes event was held overevery weekend throughout May, which proved to bea good decision as it allowed visitors to see morehomes, created momentum for the event that builtover the month and it allowed the development ofmini clusters of open homes.

We had a ‘Host and Volunteer Day’ that consisted ofa tour of the homes together with presentationsabout the day, a question and answer session andhomemade refreshments. It was a great chance forall hosts to interact with each, share tips and providea better quality of induction as it included an actualtour and presentation from a homeowner of what toexpect.

Apart from making it an annual event we wouldlook to extend the area to be Essex-wide with miniclusters and we now have the skills to enable otherlocal groups to extend the project with our help andresources.

Energy Alton

Alton Green Open Homes

En-form

Colchester Green Homes

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The homes that opened for our event gave us areally good geographical spread as well as providinga good balance of building and technology types.However, numbers within Exeter tended to be muchbetter than in the surrounding areas, which mayreflect our focus as an organisation and oursupporter-base.

There were different arrangements for visiting eachhome and it seems that this had an effect on visitornumbers in each case. Homes where people wereasked to book directly with the host tended to bepoorly attended, drop-in homes were moderatelywell attended, and set tours tended to be wellattended (except when outside of Exeter).

The biggest success was the organised tour ofMontgomery School and two eco-homes wherepeople got to see an inspirational public building, anew-build eco-home and a semi-detached homethat had been retrofitted on a budget.

Although numbers were slightly disappointing, wehave certainly had an impact in getting a significantnumber of people a step closer to making their ownhomes more energy efficient. Moreover, we havesolidified and boosted our profile as an organisationand made some very important connections with keypeople and groups that will help us to make futureevents even better.

The West Kent Open Homes happened on the 17and 18 May and was the first time we had tried aspecific open homes event, although we had runsomething fairly similar in 2010. We publicised theevent through our local press and radio, as well ashaving some exposure on local what’s on websites.

We used our own website to promote the event aswell as Twitter, and other local organisations andhosts retweeted many of our posts. Interestinglyhosts who tweeted received the most visitors on theday they were open.

Our information hub worked really well and if weran another event in the future like this we wouldprobably do a one day event centred around theinformation hub. Our tip would be to distribute your leaflets and posters earlier and try toget the local press to send a photographer to takesome good pictures ahead of the event. Don’t waitaround to start your publicity and do more ofeverything!





Exeter Community Energy

Exeter Community EnergyGreen Open Homes

HadLOW Carbon Community

West Kent Open Homes

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We have experience of running open tours ofLancaster Cohousing and tours for specialist groupssuch as academics and planners. We wanted toexpand this to include as many other types ofproperty as possible from the local area coveringnew build and renovation, with simple and morecomplex measures as examples of what can be done.We decided to run two weekends with tours ofLancaster Cohousing on the Saturday and otherproperties open on the Sunday.

The two most popular aspects of our events werethe Energy Fair which brought nearly 200 people tothe site of Lancaster Cohousing and meant thatthere were a significant number of people whovisited the homes we opened. This was an effectiveapproach and if we were to run Green Open Homesevents again we would focus on interestingproperties, with relevant messages, rather thantrying to get a number of homes to open.

The Oxfordshire Green Homes Network held eventsin different parts of Oxfordshire in order to try andtake a wider approach to running an open homesevent. Running an event over such a large areameant that we need to carry out a strong publicityapproach and as well as getting press into papersand doing multiple radio interviews we were alsoable to get an interview on the BBC Oxford news.

There were some significant barriers to overcomeand recruiting homes proved quite tricky, partlybecause many volunteers of the Community ActionGroups across Oxfordshire were also involved in theArt Weeks that run throughout May.

If you’re thinking of running an event then considerdeveloping clusters of homes which can definitelyhelp for events in rural areas and make sure that youplan carefully to avoid any other local events, or ifpossible, work with them to combine your resources.

Lancaster Co-Housing

Lancaster & MorecombeGreen Homes

Low Carbon Hub

Oxfordshire GreenHomes Network

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A wide variety of homes were included on the Lymmand Warrington Green Trail covering different housetypes, ages and locations (including off gas grid),and demonstrating a broad range of improvements.The Golden Gates Housing Trust (GGHT) tour visitedexamples of external wall insulation, flat-to-pitchroof conversions, large scale PV installations andwood pellet biomass heating as well as a visit to theGGHT training centre.

Our top tips for event organisers would be toencourage all the homes to open at the sametimes/days for drop-in visits and try to identifyinfluential individuals in the community to help withpromoting the event e.g. local councillors andcommunity group leaders.

In the future, we will continue to develop the webbased Green Trail and arrange home visits on an adhoc basis. We are considering another openweekend next year and another tour of the GGHTproperties especially new developments which are inthe pipeline.

One visitor commented: “The most positive aspect ofdoing this was that you are talking to real peoplewho are not trying to sell you something, and beingvery distrustful of marketing of any kind, this reallyappealed to me. Another enjoyable aspect is beingwelcomed into lovely homes by lovely people”

Eco Open Houses Worthing & Steyning took place inWest Sussex over 2 weekends in April 2014.

We produced a full colour brochure and case studiesfor each house. 7,000 brochures were distributedaround the local area! The event was coveredextensively by local press and social media, followingpress launches in both towns prior to the events.

It was run in partnership with local groups TransitionTown Worthing and Steyning 10:10, to shareexpertise and seed the event for future years.

45 Volunteers from the local areas helped out duringthe event, and want to do it again!

A 'green card' tea shop voucher was alsoincorporated into the event to increase publicity andengage local businesses - this worked particularlywell in Steyning with its tea shop culture.

The event focused particularly on retrofitting andlifestyle changes to show what could be done inordinary homes.



Number of visitors: 1,088

Low Carbon Lymm (Cheshire)

Lymm Green Trail

Low Carbon Trust

Worthing and SteyningEco Open Homes

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A local event designed to save people money ontheir energy bills and make their homes warmer, hastripled the number of people getting involved in justits second year. Visitors were able to talk tohouseholders, and in some cases architects andinstallers, about their experience of improving theirhomes and living in them.

A variety of houses were on display, demonstrating arange of different energy efficiency improvements. Inone home the host had managed to cut their bills inhalf by spending £3,000 on a new boiler, cavity walland loft insulation and some draught-proofing. Butnot all of them had finished their improvements, twohomes were mid-refurbishment giving visitors anexcellent opportunity to see exactly what goes intothis type of renovation work.

One visitor commented: “It was really useful to see ahouse where the owners had the confidence tomake these improvements.”

The Esk Valley and Coast Green Open Homesweekend on 5 and 6 April proved a big success withmany people visiting several of the homes and thepop-up cafe in East Barnby. Most of the visitors werelocal but we had a couple of visits from as far asLondon and Liverpool, and quite a few travelledsome distance to see what energy savingtechnologies are being used in the Esk Valley area.

We had visits from a couple of Scarborough BoroughCouncil Councillors who were supportive and whowe hope to keep in contact with for future work onsustainability. A couple of local farmers wereinterested to see ground source heat pumps and alarge scale log boiler on the two farms in our openweekend, as well as a heat recovery system takingheat from the warm milk in a milking parlour atScaling Farm. The hosts had a busy weekend but hadenjoyed spreading the message about greentechnologies and showing people what is possible indifferent types of houses.

Marches Energy Agency

EcoHomes Open WeekNottinghamshire andDerbyshire

Moor Sustainable

Esk Valley and CoastGreen Open Homes

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The event held on 15 and16 March 2014 was thethird in a series of events organised by the HighgateSociety and Muswell Hill Sustainability Group(MHSG) in the western part of the London Boroughof Haringey.

The events consisted of a series of talks by expertsand by homeowners on different aspects ofsustainable house renovation, taking place at thesame time and in the same place as an exhibition bytrade suppliers and other sustainability groups. Onthe second day of the weekend up to 8 homes atdifferent stages of renovation were opened to thepublic.

Combining open homes with talks and/or anexhibition over the same weekend works well andwe’ve already recommended this to other groupsinterested in running open homes events. If you canform good partnerships with other sustainabilityorganisations and residents associations then it willhelp maximise your coverage – make the most ofthese networks to get as many people along aspossible.

North Dorset District Council organised the first freeOpen Eco-Homes event in the area from Friday 16 toSunday 18 May 2014. The Council also worked veryclosely with South Wiltshire Green Doors sharingexperiences and knowledge which was invaluable –both events were happening at the weekend so weworked together to maximise the publicity.

Properties ranged from large detached buildings tocommunity spaces and smaller terraced dwellings.The event also raised awareness of the properties inthe District with local councillors who expressed theirsupport for the initiative.

“All in all a very worthwhile & enjoyable day- whereit was possible to glean useful knowledge based onthe practical experience of green enthusiastichouseholders with no sales axe to grind.”[Visitor]

All of the participating properties were rewardedwith a box of organic vegetables from local supplierGold Hill Organics in Child Okeford and many havecome back to say that they would participate inanother event next year.




Muswell Hill SustainabilityGroup

21st Century Homes

North Dorset District Council

North Dorset OpenHomes

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Number of visitors: 44In April we welcomed an enthusiastic group of localhomeowners aboard our first Green Door Tour. Thetour gave individuals the chance to see energy savingmeasures in real homes that are of a similararchetype to their own. Many of our visitors wereinvited as they currently live in cold, draughty solidbrick properties and find it difficult to keep theirhome warm.

Our tours had limited space so we didn’t need to doa great deal of publicity; they filled up fairly quicklyfollowing a letter to households who were alreadyon our database and had showed an interest in solidwall insulation already.

If you can, drip feed information, do not bombardpeople. We had plenty of time on the minibus to dothis – once at the house it meant there was plenty oftime for the owner to talk from a differentperspective. We also produced energy saving goodybags to give to each visitor in the hope that thiswould keep them thinking about the improvementsthat they had seen after the day was over.

A bit of a wow factor can help too, we were luckythat one of our open homes was recently featured inthe Guardian’s top 10 eco homes of 2014. Theseevents have much more impact compared to havinga stand at a community event.

We wanted to inspire people to take the leap andfeel more confident if they were consideringinvesting in renewable technologies. Giving them thechance to speak to other local people and view thetechnologies available to them first hand.Surprisingly, a lot of the people who attended ourevent were not from the village of Pewsey itself butfrom slightly further afield.

We would look at reaching more of the localresidents in any future event, in addition toencouraging those from the surrounding area. Theoverwhelming response from visitors was thatpeople found our event both useful and inspiring.

“I just wanted to thank you for a great enlighteningweekend! We met so many lovely people and learntloads too!”[Visitor]

Nottingham Energy Partnership

Nottingham Green Doors

Pewsey Vale EnvironmentalAction Team

Pewsey Vale Green OpenDoors

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Our open home season in Sheffield recruited andsupported 17 homeowners who have made lowcarbon improvements to their homes, and enabledthem to open their home to visitors, over 10 days inspring 2014.

Green Homes Sheffield’s open homes events wereenjoyed by attendees and hosts, who showedinterest in taking part again. Feedback shows thatattendees found the events informative andappreciated the host’s generosity in passing on theirknowledge. Hosts appreciated how “people found itinteresting and useful to look at the work we'vedone, even though it is by no means complete orperfect in all respects!”

Attendees found it particularly useful seeing“practical examples of what could be done in ahome just like our own”. Postcard invitations toneighbours proved a good marketing strategy, andsome felt the events are developing a community.

In the future we will consider more focus on thegroups of open homes in specific neighbourhoods,working more with local community associations onpublicity. We would also like to try out differenttypes of event including skill-sharing sessions.

The SAVE Open Homes event offered a broad rangeof different housing types for visitors small and big;terraced and detached; old and new, an Eco-homeOpen Day had something for all!

Redfield House, one of the openers, is a unique largemansion with a range of technologies including solarPV and thermal, biomass boilers and a number ofvery green residents.

Robert Smart, one of the two more conventionalopeners living within the beautiful village ofThornborough, said of the planned event:“We had a broad range of very different homesthroughout the Vale, opening their doors to visitorsthis year, including two in this village, so openerswere able to offer relevant advice on reducing thesize of heating bills, whether renewable energyremains a good investment or those who simplywanted to do something about their carbonfootprint, there was something for everyone!”

The event has received some excellent feedback andwe hope to get openers together for a BBQ thissummer to plan the next event.




Regather Co-operative Ltd

Green Homes Sheffield

Support Aylesbury ValeEnvironment (SAVE)

SAVE Open Homes

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Sustainable Frome

Frome’s Green OpenHomes

The Surrey Green Homes event happened over oneweekend of the 17 and 18 May and every home thatopened used an online booking service so that theycould manage the numbers of people who mightwant to visit. We conducted a larger leafletcampaign, delivering 21,000 to households and wealso used social media to raise the profile of theevent.

We were able to offer 20 free Green Dealassessment that were provided by Instagroup forvisitors who completed a questionnaire, but it didn’tseem like this was much of an incentive and in thefuture we would consider using vouchers that mightbe used for eco appliances.

Getting homeowners to take a more active role inpromoting their home being open is definitelysomething that we would recommend. Relying onpublicity from organisations such as local authoritiesisn’t enough and getting the event out therethrough word of mouth would certainly help. Goodquality photos of the homes that are opening willhelp your marketing material look professional andhelp with the promotion of your event.

Frome Open Homes was organised by FromeRenewable Energy Co-op (FRECo) and took place ona beautiful sunny spring weekend, the 15 and 16 ofMarch 2014. We also held a householder event threeweeks before the open homes weekend whichprovided participants and volunteers with anopportunity to meet each other, ask questions, findout more about the Green Doors phone app andallay any fears.

On the day we also paid a professional photographerto take photos and a film maker to make a short filmof the event – both of which have already beenuseful in promoting future events and showcasingour work. The main challenges were last minutechanges to the program as a few homes droppedout and we did a mix of bookings and open houseswhich did cause a little bit of confusion as noteveryone was aware that you didn’t need to bookfor some homes.

Our advice would be to try and keep things simple –learn and adapt from others, use their sign in sheets,risk assessments, volunteer check-lists etc. Check ifyou need lots of volunteers as this is a lot of extrawork and householders may be able to supportthemselves. Following up the event with energy fairis also a good way to prompt and support visitors inundertaking low carbon retrofit.

Thameswey SustainableCommunities

Surrey Green Homes

See photos from the Frome event overleaf

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This was our first open homes event and we wereinspired by the Green Open Homes competition andhelped by taking advantage of the templates andguidance on the Green Open Homes website as wellas getting support from Bristol Green Doors.We were thrilled with how many people wanted totake part by opening their homes and that we werealso able to involve other venues – two cafes, agarden centre, a garden (complete with irrigationsystem made from bicycle tyre inner tubes) and awall (a beautiful fan-design garden wall made withreclaimed bricks found at Trinity Buoy Wharf wherethe Lea meets the Thames)!

Hiring a local professional photographer meant wehad a good set of photos for our publicity brochure,website and other promotional material and we nowhave a wonderful record of our open homes projectwhich we can use to help secure funds next year.We were fortunate to have beautiful sunny weatherfor our event - great for demonstrating the home-made solar powered shower in one homeowner’sconservatory! Visitors were extremely interested andenthusiastic, many making notes and asking lots ofquestions.

We also held some additional events that includedphotography exhibitions at two local cafes, a ‘Meetthe Experts’ Q&A session and a ‘Thank You &Evaluation Party’ for our homeowners.

The idea behind the weekend was to answer thequestions – ‘Why be Sustainable?’ and ‘What can wedo to be Sustainable?’ From simple solutions (forexample, changing light bulbs) to more complex andexpensive solutions (for example installing groundsource heat pumps).

This is the sixth event of this kind organised byTransition Stroud and homes were open over the firstBank Holiday weekend in May to demonstrate andgive advice about renewables and energy efficiencymeasures.

Many participants say they have been inspired totake energy efficiency measures and considerrenewables in their own homes after the weekend.Some people, having visited before and madechanges to their homes, visited again for furtherinspiration towards their next eco-renovation plans.

We had a record number of homes opening ourevent - from old, listed buildings to self-built woodenhomes. Visitors were able to find something ofinterest to their own situation as well as beinginspired by home owners who were ahead of themin sustainability.




Hornbeam Environment Centre

Waltham Forest GreenOpen Homes

Transition Stroud

Stroud Green Homes

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Transition Town Loughborough

Loughborough EnergyEfficient Homes

Our Green Open Homes event took place over twoweekends in May. We also used the event to supporta local charity, which is something we’d recommendto anyone thinking of running an open homes event.Our local press gave us good coverage and thecharity also publicised the event on their website.

Despite all of our good publicity we are notconvinced of the public appetite for “green advice”.Some of our visitors were just enjoying an afternoonout and not really interested in the informationprovided. The most popular homes were the“glamour” homes, one an award winning new-buildeco-home, the other a beautiful 17th century barnwith sympathetic green upgrades. The modestordinary houses did not receive many visitors. If wedo run it again we’d just do it over one weekend asthe first weekend went well but the secondstruggled for numbers.

The Loughborough Energy Efficient Homes event ranover the weekend of 17 and 18 May 2014. We hadseven homes providing information to visitors on theweekend itself: three in Loughborough itself, one inthe neighbouring village of Shepshed and three innearby Woodhouse.

As this was the first time we had run an open homesevent in Loughborough we didn't really have a feelfor how well received the idea would be – it wasrather nail biting in the few days leading up to theweekend. Home owners said that they enjoyed theevent, although several commented that it was tiringand they were glad that they'd opted to just openfor one day on the weekend rather than both. Wehad asked the home owners if they wanted us toprovide volunteers to assist them on the day– somedid and others were happy to use family and friendsas “marshals”.

There's a good chance that Transition Loughboroughwill run similar open homes events in the future butwe will need to work out how to fund such eventssustainably. One of the nice aspects of this year'sweekend was that there were no commercial“strings attached” - it was purely individual homeowners talking to interested visitors about whatevermeasures they had implemented.

Transition Town Maidenhead

Transition Town Maidenhead Open Green Homes

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Transition West Bridgford has run open homesevents since 2010, but this year was the first timethat we included thermal imaging displays as part ofthe event.

We take the pre-booking approach even though italmost certainly results in smaller numbers attending,but we feel it keeps numbers manageable for hostsand gives a better experience to visitors as they canhave really good chat with the host if they areparticularly interested in some aspect of the home.We have varied our marketing approach over theyears and we tend to combine radio, local press andusing the email networks that we’ve established aswell as those of other organisations in the area. Nexttime we’ll try social media. Most of our visitors todate have said that they don’t bother with socialmedia – so this could well attract a very differentaudience.

All visitors found the visits useful and inspiring, andalthough most already knew about eco-renovationbeforehand they still learned something new. Oneinteresting point was that many visitors this yearwere taking detailed notes to create or refine theirown medium and low energy build/refurbishmentplans.

Capitalising on the success of last year’s inauguralWilton Community Land Trust event, Green OpenHomes funding was granted with a view toexpanding this year’s event to cover a largergeographical area. We stretched across the whole ofSouth Wiltshire with most of the properties being inand around Salisbury.

In the run up to the event, we organised a GreenDoors quiz to raise awareness which was well-attended. We had good media coverage locally andwere listed on all relevant websites both local andnational. Unfortunately we came up against twounforeseen circumstances which affected visitornumbers: the best weather of the year so far andextensive road works in and around Salisbury andWilton.

It’s easy to underestimate the time it takes to findthe properties, visit the home owners and then dothe case studies and risk assessments. The personalrelationship is very important, in our view, and wecertainly spent a lot of time making sure thateveryone taking part was happy and felt ‘in theloop’.

The time needed to be able to involve as many localbusinesses, schools, eateries etc as possible is greaterthan the time we had so it all comes down totimelines and when funding is actually madeavailable.




West Bridgford in Transition

Transition West BridgfordOpen Homes

Wilton Community Land Trust

South Wiltshire GreenDoors

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SuperHomes is a networkcoordinated by the National EnergyFoundation to showcase houses thathave achieved exceptional carbonemissions reductions of 60% andover. Many SuperHome owners arepart of the Green Open Homesnetworks and have showcased theirhouses at events. The SuperHomeswebsite has detailed information onindividual houses and therenovations they have undertaken.Find it at superhomes.org.uk

By reducing their home’s carbon emissions by62%, Sue Roberts and Richard Harding ofWallingford have qualified Glebe House, forSuperHome status.

Glebe House is kitted out with a variety ofgreen technologies. Loft, roof and externalwall insulation work with the triple glazedwindows and draught-proofing to create amore airtight, better insulated property thatremains warm all through the winter.

Mechanical ventilation with heat recoveryprovides constant fresh air whilst maintaininga stable temperature in every room. Solar PVpanels provide clean electricity and solarthermal pre-heats water used for washing.Rainwater is harvested and used for toilets,the washing machine and outside taps, andwater saving devices can be foundthroughout the property.

SuperHomes

Sue Roberts and Richard Harding

Wallingford, Oxfordshire

Emission reduction : 62%

Like many other SuperHome owners Sue andRichard have managed to incorporatebeautiful design into their renovation. The lofthas been transformed into a living space, lit byan array of skylights. The kitchen has alsobeen redesigned to make optimum use of thespacious ground floor.

External wall insulation provided anopportunity to change the exterior of thehome, and the couple took it: they chose pale cream coloured render (which will neverneed to be re-painted) and blue windowframes which gives the property acontemporary cottage feel. It is hard tobelieve the house is over 50 years old!

Sue says: “People have this impression thatgoing green means sacrificing comfort andbeautiful architecture; I hope our home showsthis not to be true.”

Sue, outside Glebe House

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We’ve opened our home five times now andit’s still exciting to see visitors expressing agenuine interest in what we’ve achieved, andto hear about their own plans for homeenergy improvements. The main change thisyear (2015) was a smaller number of visitorsto our property, which might be a sign thatwe need to start thinking about how toextend our reach beyond visitors who arealready interested in this type of thing.

Before this year’s open day I was able to goon some excellent training organised by theCarbon Coop on retrofitting domesticproperties. This gave me a lot moreconfidence to explain in greater detail thebenefits of our improvements and was a reallyvaluable experience.

Andrew Gage

Stockport, Manchester

Emission reduction : 74%

When I invite people in, I always focus onexplaining the importance of insulating first,as this is relevant for everyone, from both abudget perspective and ease of installation.However, we did have one couple who visitedwho were very restricted on what they couldachieve due to planning restrictions.

We are fortunate to have been able to installa couple of renewable energy technologies aswell as a rainwater harvesting system. Visitorsare always intrigued by our air source heatpump as they aren’t common in domesticbuildings, but we still get a few questionsabout our solar panels as well.

Although I’ve opened my house for manyyears now, I still feel like my technicalknowledge is limited in a few areas, butvisitors don’t seem to mind this as they oftenjust want to hear how we got started on ourproject. One of the responsibilities as a homeopener is to act as a trustworthy source ofinformation to help visitors identify valuedtradesmen. People always want to know ifwe’re happy with the work that was carriedout and if we’d recommend them!

We may have had fewer visitors than usualthis year, but being able to demonstrate theenvironmental and financial benefits of thework that we’ve put into our house willhopefully inspire others to do the same.

Andrew’s outhouse is covered in solarPV panels

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