You can now download our successful (non-passive) net zero carbon Victorian house retrofit data and use it to learn how to carry out your own house retrofit or even support your commercial retrofit business. All because we want to help solve a very big problem!
1. Headline Data – Solar PV House (PDF)
2. Planning/Design & Access/Public Support of Lord Deben (Chair, Committee on Climate Change)
3. ZIP File (x4 editable Excel files):
– Retrofit Costs – Solar PV House (updated May 2021)
– Insulation Installed – Solar PV House
– Energy Use – Solar PV House
– Tesla Data Combined – Solar PV House March 2018 to June 2021
4. Construction Drawings – Solar PV House (PDF – View Only)
5. SAP Data – Solar PV House (PDF)
6. Licensed Solar PV House Images (16) ZIP File
If you buy a download from us the money will go to our tiny non-profit company called Weyforward CIC which just launched The Circular Shop in Weymouth. The shop houses a growing library-of-things Weyshare, sells cheap locally sourced biofuel briquettes by the kilo to help with fuel poverty, rents out micro pop spaces by the week to creators and makers who recycle and upcycle to create new products. All whilst supporting and educating the local community about the circular economy via a new podcast.
Click on the dropdown menu to choose your five year retrofit data licence. N.B. If you wish to retrofit more than 40 properties using our house data to inform your project please contact us for a price/custom download.
Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change backed our retrofit build by sending us a personal message for the planning committee members when our application had initially been rejected, he told them,
“This planning application is precisely the kind of change that we are going to need to make if we want to win the battle against climate change.”
The UK Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee in a call for evidence on the sustainability of the built environment published information about the house.
There are lots of free PDF downloads about whole house retrofitting in the UK but there is a clear information gap which is hindering homeowners and landlords in their efforts to make old Victorian houses reach EPC ‘C’ by 2035.
‘“What’s clear from our survey is this glaring awareness gap between period property-owners who know there is a problem and those who know how to fix it.” Scott Clay from the lender Together. The lender highlighted the ‘awareness gap’ following Government proposals to decarbonise all sectors of the UK economy to meet net zero targets by 2050. In terms of housing, estimates suggest the drive for a net zero future will impact about five million of today’s period homeowners.’ Read the Financial Reporter article.
What do you actually do now if you are the owner of a Victorian house which is energy inefficient and you need to retrofit it? In our conversations with people who came to a Dorset Greener Homes open house at the Solar PV House in Weymouth the task of actually knowing what to do and how to get going was the biggest barrier because of the mass of information, products and sales people eager to part them from their money.
There is definitely an ‘information overload’ if you decide to retrofit your old house, we can attest to that completely! And it is intimidating. No doubt this is the reason there are now Retrofit Coordinator qualifications leading to jobs created to implement the UK government’s PAS 2035 Retrofit Standard which when you Google it for government information sends you to a page that doesn’t even mention PAS 2035. To many this could look like a job creation scheme/barrier to entry participation exercise by the big industry players but we really hope it isn’t because retrofitting our 28 million homes in the UK that need it urgently is such an important issue.
So this is why we have decided to make all of our whole house retrofit data that we have amassed creating the Solar PV House available for homeowners, retrofit assessors, coordinators and contractors of all shapes and sizes. Our house is a bit different because it isn’t passive or EnerPHit, just well insulated, uses recycled materials, is all electric and could be repeated in millions of very similar Victorian terraced houses around the UK. It could even be disassembled to create a staged road map of measures to embark upon in a house retrofit.