The Lewes Home Retrofit Guide
Project type: Design guide consultancy work
Project location: Lewes, East Sussex, UK
Deeper Green were invited to work on an eco-retrofit guide by authors and fellow Lewes residents Ann Link and Suzy Nelson – both veteran advocates for low carbon refurbishment. Deeper Green, having created a number of 3D cutaway views of retrofitted construction typologies, embarked on creating a fuller set that reflected homes within the town of Lewes. In truth, the examples are applicable to many generic forms of domestic scale construction in the UK.
Key to Deeper Green’s involvement in the design guide was the creation of engaging and easy to understand illustrations which demystify how buildings are put together, how you can integrate thermal efficiency interventions and underlying indicators of building physics.
In practice we need eco-retrofit thermal upgrade solutions to suit a range of constraints. Technical difficulties are usually most significant at the junctions of thermal elements such as between external walls and roofs.
Above and below: To make the construction context easier to comprehend, many of the Guide’s illustrations are presented as pairing of before and after retrofit comparisons.
With architects rarely involved in the construction phase of domestic scale eco-retrofit, one of Deeper Green’s aims was to provide homeowners with sufficient eco-retrofit knowledge such that homeowners are better able to hold their builders to account towards the pursuit of successful low carbon refurbishment. As such the guide introduces a basic overview of how eco-retrofit works, what some of the pitfalls are and conveying basic knowledge around building physics. To this end the contents of the book included sections covering topics such as:
A fabric first whole house approach
Heat losses
Heat gains
Insulation
Ventilation
Roof, wall and floor construction typologies
Windows and doors
Heat pumps
Micro-generation
Statutory approvals
Grants, loans and reduce VAT rates for energy efficiency work
Useful resources and links
Above: There are many sources of water vapour in a home. This indicative view makes visible the invisible phenomenon known as water vapour and we generate a lot of it in our homes. Excessive amounts of what in fact is a gas need to be ventilated out to reduce harmful effects to occupants and the building fabric itself.
Team credits:
Authors: Ann Link, Suzy Nelson and Ian McKay
Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to the support of the good people of the Lewes Climate Hub and Nevill 2030.
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