About The Renewable House
The Renewable House has been created to demonstrate that mainstream affordable homes can be constructed from renewable materials - meeting both housing demands and environmental targets.
The Renewable House is a unique housing project launched at BRE's INSITE09 event in June 2009. The house is based around using renewable materials to deliver an affordable house that meets Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, with a build cost of £75,000, excluding groundworks. Whilst offering significantly minimised embodied CO2, the design also enables the easy enhancement to meet Levels 5 and 6
The scheme was delivered by the NNFCC with funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The house was Project Managed by contractor The Linford Group who managing the design development and construction. They worked with design partners Empyer Homes and Archial Architects. The key building material, Tradical® Hemcrete®, was provided by product manufacturer Lime Technology.
Now complete, the house's performance is being monitored over a three year period in order to establish evidence of the performance characteristics and the sustainability profile of renewable building materials. It is anticipated the development will demonstrate that low costs and renewable building methods are compatible and together they provide a viable method of delivering sustainable, affordable homes.
The Renewable House will achieve Level 4 of the CSH (Code for Sustainable Homes) by material choice alone, with optional packages available to boost this to levels 5 and 6. This would be a big step towards meeting the Government's aim of making all UK homes reach Level 6 by 2016. As a three bedroom detached house, it can be modified to produce both semi-detached and terraced housing.
The project is now being managed by the InCrops Enterprise Hub.
