Zero-carbon Home, Barratt Building, Architects, BRE Eco House, Sustainable Design Materials

Zero-carbon Barratt House, England

Sustainable English Home at Buildings Research Establishment (BRE): UK Eco Residence

15 Aug 2008

Barratt Zero-Carbon Home, UK

Barratt Developments unveils what they claim as the first zero-carbon house developed by a volume housebuilder

The Barratt Green House is built at the Buildings Research Establishment (BRE) in Watford, England.

It includes the latest technology, including solar panels, rainwater harvesting and an air source heat pump.

The Green House combines new kind of concrete walls and floors with super insulation and triple-glazed windows. Fresh air is brought into the building through a heat exchanger, which extracts the heat from outgoing stale air and puts it back into the house.

The Barratt house does not use gas. The air source heat pump is powered by electricity produced by the solar photovoltaic cells on the roof. Hot water comes mainly from a solar thermal panel on the roof, backed up by the heat pump in winter. Automatic shutters slide across the windows to prevent the house getting too hot in the summer, with manual override.

Barratt plans to rollout its zero-carbon homes on the site of Hanham Hall hospital near Bristol, southwest England. It aims to build 200 of them, a third of which will be affordable homes. All will be code level six and will completed in 2011, five years ahead of the government zero-carbon home deadline.

Housebuilders will be forced by government legislation to build only zero-carbon houses from 2016 onwards.
Code level six is the top grade awarded to a completely zero-carbon home.

Location:Bucknalls Lane, Watford, England, WD25 9XX

Zero-carbon home, BRE site, Watford, England
Sheppard Robson with Arup