Warmth without warming

Staying warm without spurring global warming is one of the great energy challenges facing Britain. It’s one taken up by these two Ashden finalists.

Woolly thinking
The plight of Cumbria’s sheep farmers is a familiar tale. From Chernobyl to foot and mouth, they’ve struggled through a series of crises. But for some at least, salvation may lie in the loft – other people’s lofts, that is. Christine Armstrong realised this when she set out to renovate her seventeenth century Cumbrian farmhouse. Determined to use natural, rather than synthetic, insulation her thoughts turned to wool as the ideal choice. Its most obvious source was grazing away yards from her home, so Armstrong was surprised to find that the only wool-based product available had to be imported from overseas. This struck her as particularly ironic, given that the coarse wool of Cumbrian highland sheep makes for excellent insulation. That potential was going to waste, and she and business partner, David Baldry, set out to exploit it through a new company, Second Nature. Their ‘Thermafleece’ product has insulation properties which have been shown to be just as effective as the synthetic variety, without all the environmental downsides. It’s particularly good at absorbing damp, claims Armstrong – a key issue in many old houses. With energy use in buildings accounting for nearly half Britain’s total carbon emissions, and with vast numbers of poorly insulated houses still in use, there’s an urgent need to invest in decent insulation. One of the most effective properties of Thermafleece, however, may prove to be incidental to its role as insulation. By providing a desperately-needed additional market for sheep products, it’s also helping conserve the close-cropped landscape of fell and dale which is such a treasured icon of the British countryside. Thermafleece doesn’t come cheap: it’s several times the price of conventional insulation. But for the present at least, there’s no shortage of customers, and with plenty of raw material grazing away on the northern fells, no shortage of supplies, either. Energy from A to ZED...
Contrary to popular belief, Cornwall has more than its fair share of people living in relative poverty. Away from the coastal tourist hotspots, inland towns such as Redruth and Camborne face major problems with below-standard housing stock. The worst of this is draughty, badly-insulated and hard to heat – it’s unhealthy for its occupants and wasteful of both money and energy. This is a scandal being tackled head on by a small charity, Community Energy Plus (CEP). Its Home Health project has already transformed nearly 2,500 such homes across the county, so lifting their residents out of fuel poverty. CEP also runs an advisory service for the general public, offering simple energy-saving tips, which has so far reached over 75,000 households. But it’s not just about improving existing homes: along with the Cornwall Sustainable Building Trust, CEP has staged a competition to find the best design for an affordable ‘self build eco-home’. It was won by Bill Dunster, the visionary eco-architect behind the BedZED development in south London, which itself won an Ashden Award in 2003 [see GF40, p34]. Dunster’s come up with a zero-fossil-fuel rural house kit, designed to be affordable for both self builders and local contractors. The kits even include an option for a ‘no dig’ permaculture garden, to allow residents to grow some of their own produce. Just one ‘Rural-ZED (zero energy development)’ has been built so far, as a demonstration unit at an exhibition in Camborne, home of the CEP. But there are already plans for Rural-ZEDs in five locations in Cornwall. Longer term, CEP is exploring Cornwall’s potential to be self-sufficient in energy. It’s calculated that the county has enough wave energy to meet its own needs – and ‘export’ a surplus. – Martin Wright

22 July 2005

Martin Wright