UK: Energy savings of 63% have been achieved following the installation of multiple Saint-Gobain systems in a world-first retrofit research project.
Saint-Gobain worked with the Energy House at Salford University, Greater Manchester, UK to prove that whole-house, fabric first retrofitting of homes can deliver significantly reduced energy costs, lower CO2 emissions and remove 50% of air leakage.
The Energy House at Salford University is a typical 1919 terraced house that has been reconstructed in a fully environmentally controllable chamber, in which climatic conditions can be maintained, varied, repeated and patterns monitored. The type of building used in the study represents 21% of UK housing stock and is classed as a hard-to-treat property due to its poor energy efficiency derived from solid wall construction.
The Energy House at Salford University included Saint-Gobain systems from British Gypsum, Glassolutions, Isover and Weber to bring high levels of thermal efficiency. The approach of the project was to measure the whole-house performance post-installation using off-the-shelf Saint-Gobain systems and standard installation techniques, making the results repeatable across the UK's hard-to-treat housing stock.
