On 23 January 2024, Cllr Richard Longstaff and the South East Essex Green Party visited Southend City Council’s “Eco Home” project in Blenheim Ward.
The show home, a council-owned property in Leigh which has been retrofitted with various thermal, energy, and water technologies, will act as a test bed for the council to understand the latest in environmental innovations. We’re glad to see the council investigating the available green technologies, and we’re keen to encourage and support the appropriate installation of these technologies in the City’s social housing.
Our team was grateful to have been given a tour by the project managers and delighted to hear that the City Council has committed the funding for a further 100+ council homes to receive overdue insulation upgrades. We had a robust dialogue with the council’s team; listening to their justifications and ambitions, and offering our industry-specific and academic recommendations on several considerations.
Our score: Good, but further improvement is possible.
Our appraisal:
We were pleased to see technologies like single-room MVHR (Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery) and insulated hot water storage installed within the property. We’re glad to see the council pursuing the correct fabric-first approach, with external thermal insulation and efficient glazing taking priority in its projects. The energy-saving devices are welcome additions, as is the study period in which the house’s performance will be monitored by the project team.
However, the excellent single-room MVHR systems and external insulation installed mean that the conventional radiator heating system is redundant and we feel its installation within the showhome is misleading.
We have some reservations about the materials being used in this project; specifically, we’re concerned that many of the materials used are plastics and petrochemical-derived, are high in embodied energy & carbon, and almost all are non-recyclable. The petrochemical-derived polystyrene exterior insulation will also off-gas harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We questioned why various cost-comparable natural and sustainable alternatives were not being used.
Many of our suggestions cited concerns regarding the maintenance and lifecycle of the devices installed, and the lack of end-of-life consideration for materials used, i.e. non-recyclable waste and electronics. We have suggested the Council take a bio-organic and wood-first approach to materials in future projects, such as timber windows and wood fibre insulation, which has additional carbon sink benefits and sustainable end-of-life built-in. These are however more expensive, so the Council needs to make a value decision on specifying such materials. We say that ethics and value outweigh racing to the bottom on cost, and these decisions will send a clear signal to external stakeholders, residents, and interested parties.
We acknowledge that this home features more individual technologies installed than would be necessary for most homes to achieve a better standard of sustainability, but we were surprised to see several conflicting systems installed within the property. We have made recommendations about some devices we consider to be costly and unnecessary which can be omitted from future schemes. In our view, the Greywater recycling system (in this domestic specification and use) is just a gimmick.
The inclusion of an (incorrectly installed) Air Source Heat Pump and Solar Photovoltaics offers more questions. In our appraisal, ASHPs are not required for this specification of high-standard thermal retrofits that use nighttime economy energy tariffs for hot water storage and heat recovery ventilation systems. Due to the legacy hip roof, there was not much space on the south-facing pitch to install PV panels, so the contractors also installed them on the north-facing pitch, meaning those units would only perform at 70% efficiency.
Additionally, there is no accounting for Passive Solar Gain through the south-facing fenestration, meaning the (now super insulated) home will need energy-intensive active cooling throughout the increasingly warm summers and heatwaves more prevalent due to climate heating. Solar gain is easily rectified with brise-soleil or roller shutters and appropriate tree planting on and off the property.
There appears to have been no meaningful discussion about interstitial condensation within the fabric of the building, which in time, could cause serious damp and mould problems.
We are disappointed that seemingly little consideration has been given to biodiversity and habitat retention in this project.
We’re concerned that whilst the water attenuation devices on show in this property are good in theory, far better natural SuDS alternatives exist, like rainwater attenuation ponds, which also create much-needed habitat supporting biodiversity. We were also frustrated by the project’s focus on installing expensive rainwater attenuation troughs to mitigate the private water company’s ongoing lack of investment in suitable infrastructure, with little consideration for how the water collection could be used to benefit the community and wildlife. With this in mind, we suggested that the council review future garden schemes away from hostile drought-resistant hard landscaping to one that uses collected rainwater to support biodiverse habitats and resilient food growth.
We questioned why petrochemical vinyl flooring was used instead of porcelain, cork, or rubber alternatives. Likewise, plasticised acrylic paint was used throughout instead of available organic alternatives. The project featured heavy use of cheap petrochemical-based carpets (that were noticeably off-gassing upstairs) instead of natural coir, hemp or woollen alternatives.
We have offered our team’s expertise to the council to inform and improve future projects, and we’re keen to suggest recommendations to make future projects cost-effective and holistically sustainable. We welcome the opportunity to study this project’s data and have offered to independently review and scrutinise the project’s performance over time to ensure ROI in future projects.
In review, we feel this project is an excellent first step towards improving the council’s in-house knowledge on retrofitting sustainability, and we welcome the steps being taken towards bettering the civic estate and housing stock. Measures like thermal insulation are an overdue step in improving the efficiency and living conditions of the City’s housing provision.
We believe there are missed opportunities and misunderstandings within the project that could be misleading to lay people and that need addressing before further roll-out.
We feel that had the project consulted with a wider field of industry experts, ecologists, and environmentalists, this show home could have been delivered to a higher eco standard and been of national significance.
We welcome consultation and involvement on future projects of this nature.
Co-authored by members of the South East Essex Green Party.
Our team for this article included;
- Chartered Architectural Technologist (MCIAT) / RIBA Affiliate
Senior Lecturer Practitioner (Architecture & Planning) - Wildlife Conservation and Ecology Specialist
- WELL Accredited Professional Interior and Spatial Designer
- ISO Environmental Compliance Auditor (EMS-14001)