12 Edith Avenue, Manchester

This project had a simple goal – to undertake an exemplar sustainable refurbishment of a typical terraced house that would be monitored in use thereafter.

This house was a rather tired 2 bedroom end terrace which pre-dated 1919. It suffered excessive heat losses and poor living conditions.

The property was completely stripped bare, the building fabric was improved with high quality thermal insulation and the air permeability was reduced significantly. Solar water heating and small scale photovoltaic electricity generation were incorporated into the refurbished building.

The CO2 emissions of the property prior to the refurbishment equated to 98.33Kg/m2/year. Following our refurbishment the emission reduced to 17.43Kg/m2/year, which is 37% below the current building regulations Part L requirements for new builds. This is comparable to achieving Code for Sustainable Homes level 3.

The refurbishment also involved installing an energy monitoring system which you would normally find on a commercial building. This allows us to remotely monitor the energy consumption via the internet anywhere in the world. This data will be recorded over a two year period to enable a true assessment of the energy savings achieved.

We have taken a rather tired 2 bedroom end terrace and created a smart, stylish, well insulated and attractive house that will cost very little to heat, and has no more controls than a conventional house.