A first: Test house-in-a-house

The University of Salford’s campus in Greater Manchester will soon be home to a house like no other in the world: a test abode built entirely within a larger, surrounding building.

What’s the point of the structure-within-a-structure project? To give researchers across multiple disciplines a way to study a building’s energy efficiency by placing it entirely inside an environmentally controlled chamber. In that way, the efficiency data that’s gathered won’t be dependent on the real weather outside, but will reflect whatever conditions the researchers want to study.

Want to see how a home’s energy performance changes when the weather quickly turns from 25 degrees C and sunny to 10 degrees C and overcast? The university’s “Energy House” will let researchers learn just how. What’s the difference in energy consumption between a day of snow and a week of rain? Just adjust the chamber’s climate controls and see what happens.

Construction of the Energy House began just this week and is expected to be completed early next year. Once it’s finished, researchers say the home will be subjected to some of the most advanced energy experiments ever conducted on a residential property. In fact, the research will look beyond insulation, double-glazed windows and efficient appliances and involve studies by psychologists, sociologists and health experts as well.

“This is an exciting time for Salford as we have the chance to focus our significant research capability to tackle the issues associated with reducing carbon emissions from the built environment,” said professor Ghassan Aouad, pro-vice-chancellor of research and innovation, who laid the first bricks on the Energy House.

The unique building is aimed at helping experts identify the best ways possible to improve the energy efficiency of the UK’s ageing housing stock. More than 15 per cent of Britain’s homes today were built before 1920, and their inefficiency makes them responsible for a disproportionate amount of the nation’s building-related carbon emissions. Furthermore, some 70 per cent of today’s homes are expected to still be occupied in 2050, making efficiency retrofits an essential part of the country’s carbon- and energy-reduction goals.

More than two million of the UK’s older homes are the two-up, two-down terraced style that were common in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It’s an architectural style that Salford researchers plan to study closely.

“There are tens of thousands of Victorian ‘hard to heat’ terraced homes across Greater Manchester,” said Michael O’Doherty of the Greater Manchester Low Carbon Economic Area. “These homes will need major improvement and investment if we are to limit increases in household energy bills and to meet challenging carbon reduction targets in the future.”

The Low Carbon Economic Area and the North West Development Agency (NWDA) are both partnering with the university on the Energy House project.

“To meet the targets for carbon reduction we will have to see a significant expansion in retrofitting of existing housing stock,” said Dan Griffiths, head of climate change for the NWDA. “This project will pave the way for Salford and the North West to take a real lead.”

Once construction is completed, the Energy House will be opened alongside a landmark business conference on retrofit issues.