This 1930s three-bedroom semi-detached family home will see tenants save big on energy bills

If you’ve ever bought or rented a home or thought much about energy bills in the last few years – and who hasn’t? – chances are you’ll have come across an energy performance certificate. 

EPCs, as they are known, are a rating system to describe the energy efficiency of a home with each dwelling getting a rating between A and G with G being the worst.

Upgrading homes to at least a C ranking is important both for financial and climate reasons. Higher ratings mean less emissions and wasted energy: the UK Green Building Council estimates that 29 million homes across the country need retrofitting if the UK is to hit its net-zero climate commitments.

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics found the median EPC rating in England had just scraped into band C while Wales sits just below at the top-end of band D.

The median scores around London, the East of England and the South East had a slightly higher median score than other parts of the UK, such as Yorkshire and the Humber, but there was not much in it. The data also does not include every home in the UK, only those with existing EPC ratings over the last 10 years.

So how do you get to a mythical band A rating? That was the challenge Cambridge Building Society (CBS) took on with Ferndale Rise to mark its 175th anniversary.

The group spent 15 months transforming the typical 1930s three-bedroom semi-detached family home from a D rating to an A. That’s typically longer than you or I would need to do the same work – CBS took extra time to document each step they were taking – but the renovations were extensive.

“We’ve always taken the opportunity to help solve whatever has been the housing issue of that generation,” said Carole Charter, chief commercial officer at Cambridge Building Society, told Big Issue. 

“Now that’s changed over time, but one of those challenges at the moment is the need to retrofit a huge majority of the country’s housing stock.

“So this is our way of supporting that drive, recognising that we don’t have all the answers, but certainly acknowledging that there are a lot of people who want to make changes to their own property, but don’t know where to start.

“So whilst we’re not saying that everyone will want or need to do exactly what we’ve done at Ferndale Rise, it at least gives them a starting point to understand what the art of the possible is.”

The property was fitted with both internal and external insulation while cavity, roof and floor insulation was also fitted and windows and doors are triple glazed.

A liquid membrane was applied to walls, floors and ceilings to boost airtightness while an air-source heat pump was fitted to replace the original gas boiler.

Underfloor heating was fitted both upstairs and downstairs while 10 solar panels were installed on the house alongside two extra panels on a building in the garden to generate electricity and cut down on energy bills.

The property also harvests rainwater into a 3,000-litre underground tank that is used to supply toilets, the washing machine and water the garden.

A sedum roof was also installed on a side extension, using plants to boost insulation and biodiversity. 

The results are impressive. Carbon emissions have been slashed from 3.6 tonnes to –0.2 tonnes, making it a carbon positive home. That means the property actively removes more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits.

But the project posed plenty of challenges. Duncan Turner, CBS’ project manager told Big Issue. A smoke test at one point showed the property wasn’t quite as airtight as it should be.

“We found a great big hole where we hadn’t painted the liquid membrane on,” said Turner. 

“We did a smoke test and it was really interesting to see where you’ve done all this work on the property you’re doing air testing and it is coming in at six or seven. You’re like: “This should be better than that. Where’s the leak?” And you find this patch under the bath. So it was actually a relatively simple fix.”

That’s perhaps a sign of the attention to detail needed to make homes as energy efficient as possible and reduce the outlay on energy bills.

The key question around retrofitting is often how much the modifications will cost. That’s more difficult to answer.

The extensive nature of the modifications which involved expanding the size of the home makes it tricky to calculate the costs related to retrofit.

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People will not be expected to carry out every modification to their home as has been done to Ferndale Rise. The project is also intended to showcase how incorporating different aspects – swapping a boiler for a heat pump or improving insulation – can have an impact on energy bills and the climate.

“I think that is important,” said Turner, when asked about the cost of the work. “I think, for us, we wouldn’t ever say to anyone do what we’ve done because we’ve done different things across the property.

“The internal, external installation is great if you have that problem, but if you’re looking to do that for your property, for example, you’d probably look to pick one or other of those options rather than combining the two.

“We’re also expecting this to be cost-neutral to run, so over the course of year, this shouldn’t be costing you anything to run this property because of the energy generation on the roof as well as the efficiency of the property itself.”

Ferndale Rise will be no showhome. 

While initially it will be used as an open house education study for interested parties, tenants will be moving into the property early next year.

CBS will be collecting data on the energy efficiency of the property while it is in use to see if it lives up to its potential in slashing energy bills.

“We will be able to learn from the tenants what it’s actually like living in a property like that throughout the different seasons,” said Charter. “So that’s the plan: we’ve got no plans to sell it or anything like that. It’s part of our portfolio of properties going forward.”

The UK is widely considered to have one of the oldest and leakiest housing stocks in western Europe but 80% of homes that exist today will still be inhabited in 2050.

While Ferndale Rise might be a more extreme transformation than many homeowners might see, it’s a shining example of what is possible and what can be done to meet the challenges of an increasingly hostile climate crisis.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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