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News: Rise of the super home

Fri, 02 Nov 07

Over 6 million older homes in the UK have unnecessarily high fuel bills for their occupants and unacceptably high emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas contributing to climate change...

These homes all have uninsulated solid walls and were typically built before 1919. Now, two charities have come together in partnership to address this problem through demonstrating how old homes can be made into super homes that are warmer, cheaper to heat and less environmentally damaging.

The two charities involved are the Sustainable Energy Academy (SEA) and The National Energy Foundation (NEF). John Doggart – the Chair of SEA explained: "The OldHome SuperHome campaign has developed a network of demonstration homes, mainly in urban areas where most properties lack cavity walls.

It shows that existing houses can be transformed to save 60% or more energy than a typical home of the same age and built form. Householders are holding energy Open Days when visitors can learn and be inspired to carry out similar eco-renovations. We plan to provide one to two examples of low energy refurbishment in each local authority area, equivalent to one per Tesco."

Announcing the joint project today, – Dr Tim Lunel, chief executive of NEF added "We see this as the start of a partnership that will lead to the two charities working closely on a number of future projects designed to combat climate change through improving energy standards in UK homes.

Under the new arrangements, SEA and NEF have each agreed to nominate a number of members to the other's Board of Trustees. The scope, extent and speed of changes we need to make means that working in partnership in this way is essential to tackling climate change."

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