Keyur Vadodaria

Refurbishing the UK's 'hard to treat' dwelling stock: Understanding challenges and constraints - the work of Project CALEBRE

Project CALEBRE (Consumer Appealing Low Energy technologies for Building REtrofitting) is a four year £2 million E.ON/RCUK funded project that is investigating technologies and developing solutions for the UK’s solid-wall houses to offer energy demand reduction, energy efficient heat generation and energy management combined with user appeal. Understanding how technical solutions can be aligned with householder lifestyles is central to the CALEBRE project. The technologies include: vacuum glazing to achieve exceptionally low U-values whilst being capable of retrofit in existing window frames; advanced gas and electric air source heat pumps that operate at the temperatures needed for integration with existing domestic radiator systems; innovative surface materials for buffering moisture, humidity and temperature; retrofit mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) to manage ventilation and its associated heat loss. The technologies are being trialled in facilities that include the University of Nottingham E.ON 2016 House, a highly instrumented replica construction of a1930s dwelling. Alongside development and trialling, business case modelling of technologies is being conducted to establish mass roll-out strategies, as well as modelling to identify bespoke packages of measures for house refurbishment. This paper introduces Project CALEBRE, its content and scope, and reports some of its initial findings to highlight the challenges and constraints involved in the process of refurbishing the UK’s domestic stock.