THE 'FLAT PACK' HOME

Imagine a 'flat pack' home that can be built in five days, which recycles the bath water and has walls that store heat.

That dream is becoming a reality on the campus of the University of Nottingham where the eco-home is being built by students.



But far from being a house of the distant future, this new technology should be seen across the country in less than a decade.

The Government has a long-term goal to reduce carbon emissions - 'greenhouse gas' - by 60% by 2050. It wants all new homes in England to be carbon neutral by 2016.

With Gordon Brown announcing that he wants 200,000 new homes built, the challenge will dominate the sector in the coming years.

As the National Housing Federation warned that the target will be missed, the university was hosting a two-day conference on zero carbon sustainable homes.

Professor Brian Ford, head of the School of the Built Environment, said: "The move towards zero carbon housing is a major challenge, but recent changes in legislation and the move towards modern methods of construction have created a significant shift in the industry."

Experts toured the eco-house which is under construction and afterwards Phil Holliday, director of building conservation company Stoneguard, and Dr Mark Gillott, associate professor of the Institute of Sustainable Energy Technology at the university, explained some of its key innovations.

Central to the energy use of the house is its ten-fold more efficient insulation and ventilation. This includes roof insulation, triple-glazed windows and walls that contain a gel which absorbs heat when it is hot, stores it and sends it back into the room when the temperature cools.

On average, everyone uses 125 to 140 litres of water per day. This needs to fall to 80 litres, so the house includes automated taps and lower flush toilets. A water management system reduces water consumption by 30%.

But most significantly, the main sections of the home are built away from the site and are driven in on a single lorry.

With skilled labour at a premium, this 'flat-pack' can be put together by general labourers in five days, and be ready to live in after ten or 12 days. Only four skips, instead of the usual 12, are being used for waste materials - primarily packaging.

Researchers will live in the house, monitoring the energy use and conducting tours.

Eventually six houses will be built on the campus - at least one of which will meet a £60,000 price limit.

Public tours of the building have been arranged before a public meeting and latest in a lecture series on climate change. The tour starts at 6.30pm and the talks and meeting are at 7.30pm on Thursday.
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Time for the IT crowd to go green

Despite the many benefits they bring, society's growing dependence on computers is taking its toll on the environment, says Steve Nunn. In this week's Green Room, he calls for a "strategic shift" in mindsets to curb IT's growing impacts.

For most people, using complex technology has become a part of daily life. Yet many people do not seem to understand the green issues that arise from the increase in computing power.

In a world where cutting energy costs and achieving efficiencies are important to both households and companies, this situation has certainly emerged as a priority in boardrooms.

Unsurprisingly, it is the energy consumed by companies and their "data centres" that is causing the bulk of the power consumption.

As IT managers today grapple with trying to deliver value, boost efficiency and reduce costs, they now have to consider their green footprint too.

Consequently, there is a continual quest to identify ways in which these goals can be achieved - a quest which is currently driving the trend towards consolidating, streamlining and simplifying data centres
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Solar Energy…as Cheap as Growing Grass?

Doctors in various fields have been telling us that solar energy is the way to go. But, up until this point, changing our way of lives to using solar energy would have been too expensive for most of us to handle. Nanotechnology researchers are bringing about a revolution when it comes to solar energy, wanting every household to be a part of it.
California Institute of Technology professor Nate Lewis is helping bringing about the change. He's working on nanoscale materials that will mimic the makeup of grass and photosynthesis as a way to capture and store the energy of the sun.

Professor Lewis and his team are trying to find ways to put nanoparticles into things we need around the house, like paint on the walls and the roof tiles of the house.

Dr. Lewis says, "More energy from the sun hits the earth in an hour than all the energy consumed by human beings on our planet in an entire year. So, if we are going to find an efficient, environmentally-friendly substitute for fossil fuels, it makes sense to exploit the sun. Nanotechnology offers us a way, in principle, to make very cheap materials-like the paint you buy at Home Depot-act as solar cells and batteries."

This is very interesting, and the possibilities are seemingly endless. This ground-breaking technology could someday power our laptops, cell phones, and even our cars! This is something to think about folks.

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Eco house opens to public

Improvements included insulating the walls externally, fully insulating the loft and replacing windows with high performance double glazing in wooden frames.

The heating system was also fitted with the environment in mind, with a space and water heater, both fed by a large water thermal store tank.

This is maintained at a temperature of 45C by a combination of solar and heat pumps - costing £3,100.

Heat pumps are electrically powered compressors that extract heat from the local environment and concentrate it at the temperatures needed for heating. Normally this would work from a ground water source, but the Hammonds' system draws its heat from the nearby River Thames.

The couple also replaced large areas of the roof with solar panels above the south-facing side and rear of the kitchen - at a cost of £3,600.

Mr Hammond said it would be unrealistic to expect people to do all the work in one go as he had.

He said: "It is expensive, but if people carry out little jobs when they are doing work, they can do it bit by bit. The savings you make in the long run far outweigh the cost of the work, provided you have it done by qualified builders."

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