Refurb Projects May 2018

N E W S • N E W S • N E W S • N E W S • N E W S • N E W S • N E W S • N E W S
George Clarke becomes Ecodan brand ambassador
Mitsubishi Electric has
announced an
association with TV
presenter, architect,
lecturer and writer, George Clarke,
to help promote Ecodan air source
heat pumps.
Best known for the Channel 4
programmes George Clarke’s
Amazing Spaces, The Home Show
and Restoration Man, George Clarke
is a passionate advocate of design
excellence and high levels of quality
in the construction industry.
In addition to his TV work,
George is creative director of
George Clarke + Partners and has
set up the charity, Ministry of
Building Innovation and Education
(MOBIE) to inspire new generations
into the building profession to
“fundamentally transform” the way
we think about, design and
construct homes and bridge the
skills gap.
“For us, George is a perfect fit
with Ecodan because he is such an
inspiring pioneer and a real
advocate of the need to build
quality into the homes that the
nation desperately needs,” explains
Donald Daw, Commercial Director
for Mitsubishi Electric Living
Environment Systems.
Mr Clarke will help promote
renewable heating and write a
monthly column on the company’s
award-winning blogsite,
TheHub.mitsubishielectric.co.uk,
which covers a diverse range of
informative and useful topics
around energy use in buildings.
“We know we need to build a lot
of homes each year to address the
serious housing shortage but we
also need to make sure that we
build quality homes and they need
to be built right across the country,”
comments George Clarke.
“The way we design, build, heat,
power and recycle our homes needs
to change and change quickly and
renewable heating is an important
part of our future.
“I’m therefore delighted to
associate myself with the marketleading
brand of heat pumps which
are built here in the UK and which
can help reduce energy bills and
lower emissions for almost any
home.”
The Government has already
recognised the value of heat pumps
in helping reduce household fuel
bills and lowering the nation’s
overall emissions levels, with the
Committee on Climate Change
forecasting that heat pump sales
will rise to over one million units
per year by 2030.
www.ecodan.co.uk.
www.mobiehomefutures.org
Ahead of Grand Designs Live 2018 we sat down with Kevin
McCloud to ask some important questions relating to
refurbishment and new builds.
Refurb Projects: How important is
Energy Efficiency in the build
environment?
Kevin McCloud: ” Hugely. For
every tonne of cement, a tonne of
carbon dioxide is produced. It’s
immensely important if you ever
build anything. Buildings gobble up
materials and resources in vast
quantities. You find newfound
respect for the value of resources,
add to that, they say that on most
building sites that for every 3 houses
that are built the 4th one goes into
the skip. We don’t manage waste
well in construction. It therefore
behoves us to design buildings with
the lowest possible carbon and
resource impact and to build homes
which have the lowest possible
carbon and resource use, so a house
which doesn’t gobble energy, but
instead generates energy, which
recycles its rainwater or grey water,
these are things which if you are
approaching a new build are
absolutely no-brainers.
With existing buildings, they’re
harder to get right. Nevertheless,
there are technologies that with
thought and care, and a little
expense can minimise our own
carbon footprint through to the
resources that we put into our
homes. Half of our environmental
impact comes as a result of driving
cars around and the other half is
heating water and heating space. If
you think about the way that you
heat a building, they then cool
down not because it disappears, it
doesn’t vanish, it leaves through the
walls and windows, through the
gaps, and it heats the air above our
homes. It seems to be a remarkably
foolish and expensive thing to carry
on heating air when we could be
building and retrofitting our home
to make them comfortable with a
minimal carbon impact”.
Refurb Projects: What are your
favourite solutions to these
problems that we will see at this
years Grand Designs Live?
Kevin McCloud: “As you are
probably aware, we have always split
the exhibition into a number of
shows, so Kitchens & Bathrooms,
Gardens, Interiors, Build, Design
Arcade and Technology, and its the
Technology sector that has moved
over the past ten years from being
very much about about hi-fi and
lighting systems to where we are
now, where you can buy all kinds of
clever ways to monitor and control
your energy consumption and your
space heating. I think that the Tech
side of a building has really come on
leaps and bounds in the last four or
five years. We have a ‘Tech Trail’
around the exhibition which you can
take, where there is conceptual
Lighting through to Energy
Management through to Security to
Building Management – a Trail
through all the elements of the Tech
show. Also you’ll also find all the
latest innovators in solar and
renewables, rainwater storage,
resource management systems as
well – its diverse”.
Refurb Projects: Is there a
trepidation on the part of consumers
(home builders or renovators) at the
moment because of competing
formats presented by the Tech
companies? I’m thinking as an
example Apple’s ‘HomeKit’ vs
Google’s ‘Home’.
Kevin McCloud: “I’m a big fan of
keeping things really simple and
really easy to understand, and
buying products that you get out of
the box, you plug in – they light up,
they start themselves, say “hello”
and away you go. There’s a new
breed of products; Thermostat
Controls, Air Quality Monitors etc,
that are really simple to use devices
which cost £100 or £150, and these
are the “Internet of Things” that we
are beginning to see emerge, that
are smaller, that speak to each other,
and aren’t part of some hugely
overburdening, complex, wired
system with a big server in a room
somewhere, (which frankly I’ve seen
enough of over the years) and this
approach is much simpler, and much
easier for people to understand and
to buy into.
We’re not far off of the fridge
freezer which monitors its contents
and orders replacements from the
supermarket AND at the same time
checks the energy level of the grid
and makes sure its using as much
off-peak cheap electricity as possible
in order to minimise peaks times.
That’s just one example – its
already happening. The Powerwall
from Tesla, who are incidentally
sponsoring part of the show this
year, it’s exactly that kind of
technology that will take energy
either from the mains when its
cheapest at night, or taking solar
energy from rooftops and storing it,
monitoring the grid and intelligently
adapting its own behaviour for more
efficiency – that’s the next ‘Big
Thing’ I think to hit our lives. Our
cookers, our fridges and our freezers
will have the potential to do this.
Rather than becoming the big,
clumsy drinkers of fossil fuel to
become ‘lean sippers’ without us
becoming too involved”.
6 JUNE 2018, REFURBISHMENT PROJECTS