Case study: Carshalton Grove

July - December 2006

Introduction

Refurbishment often appears as the drab poor sister of newbuild. Yet the successful upgrading of a significant part of the existing housing stock is crucial to most carbon reduction strategies. One of the leading strategies is the Environmental Change Institute's '40% House' (Environmental Change Institute, 2005). The strategy anticipates a need to provide a total of 31 million homes by 2050 combined with a cut in the UK's carbon output by the same year by 60%. The ECI envisages a scenario where 220,000 homes are built per annum until 2050 combined with an ongoing programme of demolition and refurbishment. By providing varying levels of insulation to the existing housing stock along with energy-saving heating technologies, it is envisaged that refurbishment could reduce overall space heating demand by 38% in that sector.

If this kind of figure is to be achieved, a secure understanding of the real-world issues of upgrading existing housing is much needed. Research into the delivering of newbuild 'carbon neutral' housing is beginning to show encouraging results, but examples of similar work involving the properties that most of us still live in are still thin on the ground.

One such example is being launched by Parity Projects. Over the coming months the company is to renovate a house built in 1890 at Carshalton Grove in Sutton, Surrey. The house is typical of the many houses occupied by a significant proportion of the population. The project will develop a schemata for applying principles of 'eco-renovation' in the future by examining and testing current construction techniques and heating technologies. Ongoing project information and results is being provided by Parity Projects through a series of regular newsletters throughout the project: