Sustainable Construction

The construction of a low-carbon or zero-carbon home starts at the site selection stage, by taking fully into account local social and transport infrastructure.

Design of the individual properties will determine the basic performance of each house, with alignment to the sun, construction materials, insulation levels and efficiency/quality of closures being a typical start-point for the performance required.  Build detail to reduce unintended air-losses also plays a key role.

Technologies, such as solar water-heating, wood burning or pellet stoves, under-floor heating, heat recovery ventilation systems, high-efficiency condensing boilers, ground source heat pumps, photovoltaic tiles and low-energy electrical appliances and fittings are then able to enhance the performance of the basic structure to enable energy/CO2 emission objectives to be met.  Where the scale of the development permits, further energy savings can be made by use of small-scale combined heat and power generators or the use of a local wind-driven turbine.

The need to economise on the use of mains water, together with the need to ensure that surface water run-off rates do not exceed conditions on the site prior to development, can come together by the use of technologies such as rainwater harvesting.  These can reduce the use of mains water by up to 50% which, when allied to other water-saving technologies such as aerated taps and dual-flush toilets, makes attainable the water-usage requirements of a zero-carbon home.

Rainwater harvesting storage tanks also make a contribution to on-site water retention and thus overall surface water management.