Everyone is building sustainable housing now, but can they do it affordably? Here’s how we built an affordable housing scheme above current energy standards yet within the UK’s affordable housing grant funding structure.

Sustainable

Housing:

Five ways to make it

Affordable

A key challenge to introducing any housing standards, both

in grant funded housing or in the open market, must be for

them to be implemented in a cost effective way in order to

ensure their success in volume.

Any process of introducing change (like the Code for

Sustainable Homes, for example) needs to incorporate a

means of managing cost to a realistic level. During the early

introduction of the Code, some examplar schemes became

hugely expensive, but there were projects which took a

different approach. Here‟s what it cost to build the

GreenGauge homes at Lingwood:

The construction cost of the fifteen GreenGauge Homes at

Lingwood was £1.618m excluding fees and VAT. This was

the amount tendered by the winning contractor, Youngs

Homes, in Q42006 and included all renewable technologies

and Rain Water Harvesting. The project trialled three

different renewable combinations against a „control‟ group of

highly insulated homes. Technologies included PVs, solar

collectors, Ground Source Heat Pumps, Sun Spaces and

Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery, all included in

the cost.

Of the £1.618m construction cost, £540,000 was a Housing

Corporation Grant, £147,000 a grant from Broadland District

Council and a further £16,216.91 was provided by the Low

Carbon Buildings Programme.

In addition, Carbon Connections funded the Monitoring

programme to the tune of £56,000. The project (which was

completed just before the introduction of the Code for

Sustainable Homes) was awarded EcoHomes Excellent,

and after completion was evaluated under the Code,

confirming the same construction should also meet Level 4.

Comparison with a similar scheme Let us compare the Build Cost of Lingwood against a

Conventional Ecohomes Very Good scheme of the same

period. “Very Good” was the requirement for grant funding

of affordable housing assessed in 2006, so it constitutes the

required level at the time and a reasonable benchmark.

The Total Scheme Cost of 15 homes at Lingwood cost

£108k a unit (including fees, post planning). A scheme of

the same period in the village of Bawdeswell, of 8 houses

and with no renewables (which received Ecohomes Very

Good) had a Total Scheme Cost of approximately £850k

equating to £106k a unit. Both schemes were built by the

same contractor.

In actual cost terms for the client the difference in the

cost to build Lingwood was therefore just £2,000 a unit.

So how can this be possible – surely the renewable

technologies cost more than this? Well yes, they did, but it

was possible to manage the cost of introducing them. Turn

over for five ways to avoid your project cost spiraling out of

control.

11a Princes Street, Ipswich IP1 1PH T: 01473 257474 design@barefootgilles.com

163-164 Moulsham Street, Chelmsford CM2 0LD T: 01245 351400

14 Clerkenwell Green London EC1R 0DP T: 020 7336 7944 www.barefootgilles.com

Barefoot & Gilles

4. Consider Everything Carefully Thinking of using a particular element in your

scheme? Ask yourself, Do you need it? What for? If

you do, how can you make the best use of it?

At Lingwood there was an opportunity to generate

wind energy, and micro generation was very popular

in 2006/7. But how would we do this? A single turbine

is more efficient than four singles, but it would be

difficult to share energy (without storage) between

four individual households. We were also convinced

that PVs would generate more energy for the

householders for the same capital cost. Lower running

costs were an important objective of the project. When

a study demonstrated that the site was not suitable for

wind energy generation, it was a simple step to

choose PVs instead.

5. Remember your Objectives Affordable housing needs to be affordable. The client

RSL wants to be able to manage the housing easily.

The contractor wants to be able to build it simply and

cost effectively, and we all want to repeat a successful

project with another.

Keeping sight of these objectives helps us make the

decisions which lead to a successful outcome.

If you’re interested in learning more about

the success of GreenGauge Homes, or how

these techniques can transfer into your own

developments,

email us at design@barefootgilles.com or

give Su Butcher a call on 07815 935 736.

11a Princes Street, Ipswich IP1 1PH T: 01473 257474 design@barefootgilles.com

163-164 Moulsham Street, Chelmsford CM2 0LD T: 01245 351400

14 Clerkenwell Green London EC1R 0DP T: 020 7336 7944 www.barefootgilles.com

1. Don’t invent anything As soon as you start inventing new components,

whatever they are, you have to incorporate the costs

of the development, and of bespoke components, into

your build. Why bother? The climate change agenda

was already far enough advanced in 2006/7 for us to

choose with relative success a range of tried and

tested technologies. The more tested the technology

is, the less likely it is to go wrong or involve you in

additional expenditure to make it work.

The homes at Lingwood are built using a standard

Space4 timber frame, with additional insulation

applied. We could have developed a new construction

system, but several were already on the market with a

good reputation and perfectly adequate for our needs.

2. Don’t change things that don’t need

changing Just because you‟re doing something new you don‟t

have to do everything new. Our affordable housing is

developed along a standard housetype which, like the

technologies we used, was tried and tested, built on

years of experience designing for RSLs. A standard

housetype reduces the cost of frame production, and

yes, offsite manufacture keeps preliminary costs down

too.

The layout for Lingwood is also very simple and

straightforward. Broadland District Council‟s planning

of f icer in i t ia l ly thought i t was too urban an

arrangement, but was supportive when it was

explained how all the houses needed to be South-

facing. As it turns out the site has a very strong sense

of community, and a balance of outward and inward

facing houses has helped encourage this.

Even the windows at Lingwood are simple Jeldwen

windows. They serve the purpose required by this

project.

3. Avoid indulging in fripperies Building sustainable housing can easily become an

exercise in outdoing one‟s competitors. The

temptation is to make the housing look different,

introduce unique components, make the building

particularly photogenic to win competitions. So easily

a small exercise can become someone‟s pet project.

But pet projects cost money, and whilst there may be

benefit in PR, is this the intention? If you have a

longer term objective, think to the longer term.

Barefoot & Gilles