New Build Housing

Introduction

By raising the standard of our housing provision we’ll be reducing carbon emissions and energy bills as well as the number of households experiencing fuel poverty in Wales.

Case Studies

Maes Yr Onn Caerphilly - Wales’ first fully ‘off-grid’ and truly self-sufficient farm house. Read in more detail about the building’s planning and construction period, the occupants’ experiences of living off-grid and our initial monitoring results for the renewable technologies performance and occupants’ energy and water use. 

LivEco, St Fagans – Securing Constructing Excellence in Wales’ Sustainability Award – Our Legacy in 2014, this development demonstrates that sustainable homes can be built on a small scale and still represent commercially viable prospects for developers.

Larch House, Ebbw Vale

Tŷ Solar – Seeks to source 80% of its materials and expertise in Wales and create local employment. The project delivered a working prototype of a solar powered 2-storey 100sqm home, building several homes in Pembrokeshire. The solar homes project has four objectives: sustainable energy, locally sourced, locally built (with a prefabricated element supporting local semi-skilled manufacturing jobs) and to change perceptions (raising awareness of timber built homes).

Solcer

The aim of the SOLCER project was to implement combinations of existing and emerging low carbon technologies through a systems based approach in order to optimise the use of energy at the point of generation. One of the project’s outputs was the design and construction of the UK’s first purpose-built, low-cost energy smart house, capable of exporting more energy to the national electricity grid than it uses. The SOLCER house is situated on the site of Cenin Renewables Ltd in Pyle, near Bridgend.

Aims

This working group aims to build a joint commitment to ensure growth/development goes hand in hand with low carbon and resource efficient construction and use.

Actions

• Establish a task and finish group to develop an action plan for responsible retrofit;
• Deliver a toolkit to assist with decisions/risk analysis for retrofit;
• Monitoring and evaluation of in situ low carbon technologies;

Consideration/dissemination of energy performance gap between design intent and performance in use;

SME Developers

In 2015, CEW facilitated a series of workshops across Wales with the Welsh Government’s Homes & Places team and SME builders / developers. At the workshops our discussions focused on: finance, land acquisition, delivery, building regulations and planning and finally “others”. Key messages from the workshops covered:

• Help to Buy
• Public land in plot sizes appropriate to SME development
• Reduce risks on land being released prior to sale through outline planning & surveys 
• Refocus Finance Wales to specifically support SMEs house builders 
•  Encourage more mortgage lenders to offer on ‘affordable’ properties 
• Provide clear, simple-to-follow guidance on existing and new regulations
• Provide easier access to a land register to allow SMEs to identify sites 
• Establish communication with SME developers that fits with their working practices 
• Continue to promote the construction sector as a career path and training in Wales

A write up of the workshops is now available here. To read more in Welsh please click here. If you are interested in finding out more about this programme of work please email info@cewales.org.uk

Fire Safety & Sprinklers

From 1st January 2016, it is a legal requirement in Wales for all new residential properties to have sprinkler systems installed (it is already a requirement for ‘high risk’ properties such as care homes). CEW hosted training seminars through 2015 – copies of the presentation can be accessed here.

Part B – Fire Safety – Welsh Government’s Technical guidance on Schedule 1 of the Building Regulations about fire safety. There are two parts to the guidance on Fire Safety. Approved Document B Volume 1 covers Dwelling houses and Volume 2 covers buildings other than dwelling houses.