Dave Farmer recently featured on BBC Radio 4’s Sliced Bread to discuss some cheap and not so cheap domestic space heating energy saving measures.
The values provided on the program were based on work undertaken by the team at Energy House 1. Judge for yourself whether you think these measures are SB (the best thing since sliced bread) or not.
The work Dave used to base his discussions on are:
- Research undertaken with NESTA to assess the impact (both good and bad) of reducing gas condensing boiler flow temperatures.
- The low emissivity (highly reflective) magnetic radiator cover that reduced heat loss through solid walls and space heating gas use.
- The window blind that dramatically reduced heat loss through single glazing
- The secondary glazing film that reduced heat loss through single glazing
- Single glazing heat loss reductions resulting from the use of curtains
- BBSA research demonstrating how blinds can reduce heat loss through double glazing
- The impact of carpets on suspended timber floor heat loss
- Thermal paints that DON’T do what they say on the tin
- The performance of thin internal wall insulation and thermal wallpaper (from Dave’s time at Leeds Beckett University Leeds Sustainability Institute)
Most of the measures listed above provided relatively small reductions in space heating energy use. To find out the impact of the the full fabric retrofit of the Energy House please review the DEEP project report.