10 February 6, 2022The Sunday TimesHome
stages, starting with easy wins
(£3,900) including double-
glazed bifold doors to
thermally separate the
conservatory, trickle vents to
windows and extractor fans
with humidity sensors in the
kitchen and bathroom. Phase
two (£8,600) includes
insulating her floors, possibly
using a robot to spray foam
underneath, and phase three
(£15,900) a heat pump and
new radiators. Doing all this
would reduce Oxley’s energy
use by 39 per cent and
carbon by 78 per cent,
with a predicted one-star
SuperHomes rating for energy
and emissions.
“The first thing you need
to do is look at your insulation.
That’s my take-home
message,” says Oxley, who
plans to fit phase one and
two measures, but not a heat
pump. “There is no point in
having an electric-driven
renewable source if the heat
is just going out of the house.
It then becomes extremely
expensive, because electricity
is expensive — renewable
or not.”
Anyone can join
SuperHomes before starting a
retrofit and, unlike the 222
pioneers, you won’t have to
open your home.THE EDWARDIAN
FAMILY HOUSE
Stewart and Mary Mcilroy,
with their three children, were
tired of feeling cold in their
Edwardian four-bedroom
terraced house in Muswell
Hill, north London. “We
wanted to be comfortable
without spending a fortune on
gas,” Stewart says. Over the
past 18 years they have spentwell-insulated home with
gas heating gets a one-star
prediction, while a house
with no emissions is likely to
earn five stars. It gives “every
home in the country a rating
they can aspire to”, Ciniglio
says. Most flats and historic
houses cannot be retrofitted
to five stars, he adds. “Getting
to three stars should also
be celebrated.”
Once the work is done, you
can monitor your home for a
year to be awarded the star
rating (£250 report plus about
£500 for energy meters and
temperature, humidity and air
quality sensors). “You’ll spend
a lot on the retrofit,” Ciniglio
says. “How do you know that
it’s been a success?” The data
could also support mortgage
applications with lower
interest rates for green homes.
About 80 homes in
Hampshire have joined two
SuperHomes pilot schemes in
Petersfield and Winchester.
Among them is Melanie Oxley,
65, an ecologist, who lives
in a leaky three-bedroom
Edwardian townhouse in a
conservation area. With local
climate activists — many of
them parents spurred on by
their children — she helped to
set up the Petersfield Climate
Action Network a year ago and
they asked SuperHomes to
assess their properties.
“It’s all very well shouting
and marching but people
here wanted to deliver
something locally.”
Oxley had already fitted
eight solar panels and
electrical storage heaters
using renewable energy. “But I
had conflicting advice so went
for the survey.” Her retrofit
plan recommends threeTHE
RETROFIT
STARS
Want to cut your energy bills and
your emissions? Join the SuperHome
movement. By Martina Lees
D
o you want to cut
your home’s
carbon footprint
but don’t know
where to start?
Ask the SuperHome pioneers,
222 owners who have
reduced emissions from their
once-ordinary properties by
at least 60 per cent, often
against the odds.
Now the charity behind
their network, the National
Energy Foundation (NEF),
wants to help a million
homeowners do the same by- Their experts can assess
your whole house to draw up a
step-by-step retrofit plan, and
use the new SuperHomes
rating system to measure how
energy efficient it could be.
With energy prices
rocketing, the pandemic
spotlight on wellness at home
and Britain’s target of net zero
emissions by 2050, there has
“never been a better time” to
invest in energy efficiency,
says Paul Ciniglio, who leads
SuperHomes at NEF. Doing so
will “save you money, improve
your comfort, and do good for
the planet as well”, he says.
He spent £30,000 on
retrofitting his draughty 1980s
terrace in 2009, Ciniglio says
his “comfort and enjoyment
went up massively. Before, I
had single glazing and terrible
storage heaters.” His two-
bedroom Hampshire house
became one of the 222 original
SuperHomes — an initiative set
up in 2007 with the owners
opening their eco-refurbished
homes to the public once a
year. “About 500 of my
neighbours came to my house,
saw what I’ve done and got
honest answers. People don’t
always want to ask a salesman
about how something
performs. They want the
warts-and-all story,” he says.
SuperHomes are about to
become much bigger, offering
any homeowner a blueprint of
energy upgrades for their
property. The £50 annual
membership includes access
to a “whole-house retrofit
plan” by a trained assessor.
They visit your home and
write a report (a process that
can cost up to £500)
recommending options for
insulation, ventilation,
heating, hot water and energy
generation. In line with new
government guidance, the
measures complement each
other and are presented in the
right order. This means you
can do the work in stages to
suit your budget — and not end
up with problems such as
damp and mould.
To predict how well the
plan will work, a further
report (£150) rates it with
SuperHomes’ five-star system
for energy and emissions as
well as comfort and health. A
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itit..Above and below,
Stewart and Mary
Mcilroy with the
solar panels on
their draught-
proof home in
Muswell Hill,
London. Right, a
wood-burner
helps to keep
their energy bills
to £150 a year, as
does the internal
porch and door
curtain, and the
wool insulation
that Stewart laid
via a hatch