St Neots : The Green House Project

Renewable Heat Premium Payments Apply Now

The Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme is a government scheme that gives money to householders to help them buy renewable heating technologies – solar thermal panels, heat pumps and biomass boilers. As from next year, the Renewable Heat Incentive will expand to cover the domestic sector and the Green Deal will come into force, so this is a short-term scheme making one-off payments that will also allow us to learn more about what people think of these technologies and how they perform in a variety of conditions.

HeatingSave helps the Green Houses and Cambs Fire save money

HeatingSave is a low-cost, revolutionary Energy Management System that saves between 15% and 30%+ off the energy used to heat and light your home. It’s controller, which replaces the central heating timeclock, contains a computer program that learns, and constantly refines, the heat loss profile of your house so that it uses the least amount of energy.

The Green House Project features on BBC Cambridgeshire

There was a great feature on BBC Look East, Friday 29 October about the houses and hopefully many would have seen this. If not visit BBC Cambridgeshire to read more about the project and listern to Marney Hall, who design the garden at St Ives describing the key features and how these benefit biodiversity.

Book your visit to the Green Houses today

To book an appointment to view either or both of the houses please call 01480 388315 or 01480 388304

Energy efficient kitchen appliances have arrived

Both properties have been kitted out with new energy efficient kitchen appliances supplied by Indesit.

Home appliances account for a significant portion of your household CO2 emissions, so it’s in your interests to look for the Energy Saving Trust Recommended logo when buying appliances. It’s your guarantee that these products are the most energy efficient in their category, will cost less to run and help lower CO2 emissions.

The garden at Manor Farm Road is progressing well…

St Neots Rear Garden

The garden aims to show visitors how they can incorporate wildlife into an ordinary back garden. The variety of shrubs provide protection, nesting sites, food sources, flowers to provide nectar and pollen, and have as much in bloom throughout the year to encourage as wide a variety of birds, butterflies, insects and mammals to visit our garden

The Green House properties join the Superhomes Network

Work has now been completed on the properties and testing has shown that both houses have successfully achieved more than a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions. With this success we have been able to join the Old Home Superhome programme which is a network of exemplar, old houses which have undergone an energy efficiency retrofit.

Post refurbishment testing now taking place

Now that the majority of the work has been completed on the Green Houses, a number of post monitoring tests are underway. These tests will show how effective the new measures have been in improving the carbon emissions form the properties.

Paving the way to managing runoff

New driveways have now been laid at both of the Green Houses and with the support of The Brett Group, who are the leading independent manufacture of building materials, a solution to managing surface runoff has been built-in to these properties.

Manor Farm Road … the story so far …

Work started on the St Neots property a couple of months ago, and it has since undergone a great deal of preparation work prior to the introduction of the retro-fit measures and technologies now being installed. Here is the story so far….

Removal and replacement of the existing windows
The original aluminium framed windows have been removed and replaced with high performance double glazed UPVC sealed units, provided by Eurocell and installed by Nationwide Windows. Eurocell’s windows are recognised as being extremely durable, low-maintenance and energy efficient. With recent advances in recycling, their UPVC windows have now achieved the highest rating possible in the latest Building Research Establishment (BRE) Green Guide to Specification (June 2008). Eurocell’s windows have also achieved a high rating for thermal efficiency from the British Fenestration Ratings Council.

Windows removed

New windows in place

The full length window at the front of the property has been replaced with a cavity-filled brick, low level wall and a smaller window. Not only will this reduce heat loss, it will also help to act as a flood prevention measure. Read more about ‘Manor Farm Road … the story so far …’ »

The Green House Project