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Construction Ecoretrofit Money saving News

GLA warmer homes scheme

I am proud to be working with Retrofitworks on the GLA warmer homes scheme. For the past year we have been providing retrofit co-ordinator services to the scheme and provided new energy efficiency measures for over 250 homes throughout London.

As well as providing new boilers we have been improving ventilation, insulating walls and roofs and helping customers improve the windows and doors of their properties. We have even provided a new boiler for a pensioner living in a caravan.

The scheme involves a number of fully trained Retrofit Co-ordinators developing a plan of energy efficiency measures for the project based on a telephone interview and an advanced energy survey from a Domestic Energy Assessor.

The Retrofitworks retrofit co-ordinator team

Once the measures for the property have been agreed with the homeowner installation is carried out by one of the PAS 2030 certified installers and once complete carefully checked by the retrofit co-ordinator.

The scheme is one of the first to offer this independent verification of the work and this is creating better value for the client and the GLA as the co-ordinator is adding in extra measures for the funds available.

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Construction Ecoretrofit Green roofs News Projects sustainability

New green extension in Hackney

Just a quick update, we broke ground on a new extension last week. It’s mostly just digging at the moment but still exciting. I got to put up a sign outside the house:

Ecoalex, new project

The project will develop over the next few weeks. The walls incorporate high levels of insulation and will be made using reclaimed materials including a white glazed brick interior and re-used wood cladding.

I spent some time in @thewashcoffee going through the plans from Clements Design with Shaun the project manager on Wednesday, checking the build process and making sure we will avoid thermal bridges. The design looks sound and we are starting on the steel supports over the next few days.

The guys all look smart in the new Ecoalex hi vis vests and are looking for opportunities to save materials on site and re-use as much as they can in the build.

Hi Vis

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Ecology Ecoretrofit Encouraging wildlife and nature Green roofs Money saving News sustainability Using less energy Using less water

Biodiverse green roof in London

Last week I completed a ‘green’ green roof. Not only was it a green roof with plants increasing the amount of green space in central London but we also managed to use it to improve the energy efficiency of the house we were building it on.

The customers were really interested in using a small roof area they had to create a wild area of land to increase bio diversity. They are not far from Roots & shoots the environmental education centre and wanted to recreate some of the wildlife areas there. We planned out the roof to include different heights of soil, a wide range of native plants and areas of logs and brick dust to create habitats for invertebrates.

A week or two before the build I was on a CORE retrofit course learning about different types of roof insulation. This included a method where the insulation was placed above the roof’s waterproofing. This was perfect for this job as the roof already had excellent waterproofing and the plan was to lay the green roof on top of this. A quick call to the customer to ask them and they confirmed that the rooms below were cold so we added this to the project.

The project was planned over two days:

On day one we moved all the materials through the house, erected the scaffold tower and began laying the insulation:

There was quite a lot to move but it all went pretty smoothly.

green roof biodiversity
Green roof substrate

Day two started with us collecting some wood from the previous nights storm to create a log pile for invertebrates on the way to the site, oh and a full English for the guys helping with the work.

Installation of fleece and drainage layer
Installation of fleece and drainage layer

We made short work of installing the water retention

 

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Design News Projects

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