We’re used to the narrative power of endings in books, films or music, but lots of digital experiences just sprawl on forever because they can….
So maybe as our experience of digital life matures we need to write more endings.

Russell M Davies Wired, August 2010

I’m taking Russell’s advice. To be frank it’s a little late in coming. The original purpose of this blog was sustainability in the built environment when I kicked it off back in February 2007. Until the end of last year I was just about able to keep it up, with a few sprinklings of other topics thrown in. As a new decade kicked in I was kidding myself that I could continue. My only remnant of responsibility in this area was chairing sessions at the Sustainability Now virtual event. The pregnant pauses between posts have now provided ample proof of that – one of the most popular series on this site was the guest posts from the team on the Hackney refurbished house, so my services have largely been surplus to requirement.
This blog was part of a professional role I took on three and a half years ago. That’s not to say that I hope I showed the required passion in the topic to make it not just a dry pen pushing exercise. In fact the experiences I’ve had knocking out these posts for the past few years have been the most valuable I’ve had as a journalist.
So I’m a fickle hack moving on to the next hot topic. That’s somewhat the case, which is a little depressing. In fact I’m no longer a journalist any more. Budgets, business cases and revenues now occupy most of my time. Which is not to say carbon has exited from my head, just that I’m afraid I don’t have much original or of interest to say about the matter.
So, so long. Do not despair. Mel, Casey and Mark – for me the consistent benchmarks in this field -  will doubtless continue (please). I will be watching closely. And for those that are still interested in my ramblings on topics such as culture, cycling, London and, yes, sustainability I will be over at posterous for the time being.

The report is somewhat lacking in detail but could be the catalyst for a much deeper industry debate on the human and social side of sustainability. A great deal of effort is being heaped into working out u-values, overheating and solar gain, but not enough on how we sell the benefits to the punters. In his address at the launch Sumeray stressed that simplicity of message and of execution were vital for selling sustainability, especially to homeowners. Immediate turn-offs for persuading the vast swathe of consumers include offering them a myriad of options for funding and actual technical solutions, as well as the language itself. As Sumeray said using the words ‘low carbon refurbishments’ probably doesn’t register with most residents.

Sumeray threw out an idea which plays into the idea of plugging into  “emotional and social psychology” of people. So instead of having an EPC in document form for a house, display it on the front of the property in colour coded form (red for rubbish, green for good). It’s a solution that’s been used for energy display devices and could be effective in visualising the energy performance of houses, playing into social status.

This feeds into a lot of emotional psychology thinking that is coming out at the minute. Books such as Nudge and Predictably Irrational are pointing to the foibles of human nature: how our decisions and actions defy logic or how a small change in the way we communciate or design a policy or procedure can lead to significant results.

Another less recently published book is called Persuasion. It offers a an intriguing example of an experiment in encouraging residents in Iowa to reduce their energy usage: they were first approached by an interviewer offering them energy saving tips who then asked them to implement them. Result: no change. Next they tried another selection of residents, and this time offered a twist: gave them advice and then declare that if the residents agreed to try and save energy their names would appear in the local newspaper. Result: drop in energy use by 27% in a month. Then a further twist: soon after the publicity offer was then retracted, removing the reason that the residents had reduced. The effect? A return to bad old ways? Nope. The residents actually improved energy efficiency: in the month after the publicity offer was dropped energy savings went up to 41%. Why? Author Robert Cialdini posits firstly that the homeowners became convinced within themselves that it was the right thing to do once the publicity offer was made. Once it was kicked away Cialdini then thinks something else happened:

In a way the opportunity to receive newspaper publicity had rpevented the howeowners from fully owning their commitment to conservation. Of all the reasons supporting the decision to try and save fuel, it was the only one that had come from the outside; it was the only one preventing the homeowners from thinking that they were conserving gas because they believed in it. So when the letter arrived canceling the publicity agreement it removed the only impediment to these residents’ images of themselves as fully concerned, energy conscious citizens.

This is the second instalment of build Dave Manby’s review of the bold and ambitious Culford Road refurb project. This Hackney project aimed for outstanding efficiency in reshaping a Victorian house. So much so limited heating requirements are required. So, does it work as a house and are there policy ideas or implications for the scheme? Over to Dave..

Does 89 Culford Road work as a eco-friendly house? You will have to ask the client in a few months time when the heating controls have buried their differences with the internet and have started talking to each other – at present Palestine and Israel are on more amicable terms. However before the boiler was even switched on I had two painters living on site when all the snow and ice was around and they did not complain about the cold, in fact during this time I went up to see how the plumber was doing connecting up the boiler to find him with his overalls tied around his waist and the windows open. Yes the insulation works!A good question to ask is “what would I have done differently if I was starting again?” On the Eco side of this question the answer is “pay more attention to the rendering of the party walls which was our “air-tightness” line. I think our biggest leak is in the party wall between 89 and 91 but this is not necessarily so; it could be this is where the leak shows and the actual breach is somewhere else! So actually the answer should be “pay more attention to the air-tightness line at all times”.

As with all builds there were errors made and they had to be corrected.

The client being my sister and her partner made for a sometime easier, sometimes harder relationship between client/builder than normal. Also the brief was different; usually you have a more trade off between budget and desire, here we had more of a trade off between environmental impact and pretty well nothing. At times I can make decisions for my sister and, because I know her, get it right at other times it is amazing how wrong I could get it! My experience and her and her partner’s taste combined with an eye on the budget and two eyes on the eco side of the build made for complicated equations.

The policy bit: Taking this project forward is the big challenge: to make future renovation projects environmentally more sustainable is a huge challenge that to building industry is going to be confronted by. Building regulations, already thought of by clients as a nuisance/interference, are going to get stricter and as a result more expensive. The temptation to avoid compliance will be directly proportional to the increase in costs. Tackling this side of the equation is the most important issue. The regulations can insist on stringent “u-values”, air-tightness ratios and the like but if the client does not want to pay for them and can circumvent the inspectorate then the carbon emissions will continue. It is easy to educate clients as to why they can’t have open tread stairs with no bar between the treads once you explain that it has nothing to do with your feet slipping through between the treads especially when the client is pregnant and you point out how easy it is for a baby to hang itself! It is harder to convince a client that these new eco-regulations are a good idea but are going to cost them 20% more especially as they are likely to move in five years time when baby No.2  arrives and so they will not recoup this cost in fuel savings.

Do you want the builder on the eco side? Here is a simple inducement: make that if you register with the local authority building control office you get a parking permit for the duration of that job on that street. With parking tickets at £60 in London a pop it is a strong financial inducement.

OK lets look at this from not so far out of the box:

• put V.A.T. back up to 17.5% on gas (and give the pensioners a rise to keep the Daily Mail quiet) and then it makes even more sense to insulate and cut down draughts etc.
• make all rents inclusive of heating costs then landlords will have an incentive to either  make improvements or sell and have to make the improvements anyway.

Apart from the parking ticket issue this does not affect the builder. Our problem is to make the passing of heat through the fabric of the building harder and to do this a cheaply as possible and to keep the planning authorities happy. From a builders point of view:-

• We need an economical method of sealing joist that are mounted in the walls.
• We need conservation zones and listed building to allow double glazed units.
• We need better extractor fans that run for the prescribed over-run time and then when they stop seal properly so as to prevent heat loss. (And we need to look at the requirement for permanent ventilation in rooms).
• Make traditional sash windows illegal and move over to spiral bound windows only – no if or buts or listed building exemptions. Sash cords and pulleys are just leaks in the fabric of a building. Spiral bound windows look the same as sash windows.
• Limit the maximum temperature a central heating thermostat can go up to.
• Someone has to design a letter box that is more air tight than is currently available to make the existing rubbish obsolete!
• Develop more effective draught proofing systems for retro-fixing onto doors – current systems have a very limited lifespan before they are flattened into uselessness. Fitting a new door is not always an option.

If all this needs a financial inducement then make all approved “green” products 0% rated for V.A.T.

I am now working on another house trying to make a refurbishment airtight again – lessons learnt from Culford Road are being put into place we have new ideas, we are more aware of the difficulties of sealing retrospectively, we are building the problems out at the earliest possible stage, we are confident of being as good as last time and hope to be better but the laws of diminishing returns hang heavy!

Readers of this blog may remember several posts on a groundbreaking Victorian house refurbishment in east London (see links at the bottom of the post). Here’s the first part of a post-project review by the builder Dave Manby, looking at the key technical challenges he faced during the job

So we get to the end of another building job – well it will never be the end because it is my sister’s house and I will always be “on call” to maintain the house as it gets older. Mind you she will always be on call for when I need a place to stay.

So how did the job go? When I last wrote for the blog we were still at the change-over stage from demolishing the old building and starting building the new. So the build starts and the challenge of making an eco-friendly house begins.

As I said the build was not just another renovation but a renovation with added problems. Some of the problems had been thought through in advance and solutions found and others had been thought of but left to be solved on-site. Others just appeared.

I mentioned the 200 mm cavities for the rear wall as an issue before: but then there were the added problems of trying to eliminate cold bridges at the joins between the old and new walls and other transitions that had either been thought of before or became apparent as we progressed. Problems also arrived at the top of the extension where we had to close the cavity and cap the parapet – they don’t make coping stones that are 600 mm wide.

We had to cast these and carry them into place. Here it was a bit of a disaster as one casting after another cracked as we tried to lift it into place. It would have been better to cast these in place but this too was a problem as there was no practical way of holding the form-work in place on the inside where the insulation for the flat roof rose up the side walls to eliminate the cold bridge.  Also clambering all over the newly laid “green roof” carrying large heavy coping stones  has done nothing for the well being of the sphagnum mosses.

Other problems we encountered:

1. Making a building air tight to a ratio of below 1 is hard – very hard and you have to be thinking of airtightness all the time. If you go near the airtightness line with a tool – think! Of all the things I have learnt during this build this is the most important. The architects did come and lecture us about this and we listened. But we, the builders, felt that because we were spending huge money on air-tight windows and doors and all the effort of removing the joists from the external walls then the major sources of leaks were “designed-out”.
   Also I feel the goal posts were moved during the build but others disagree. I thought we were aiming at a ratio of “3” and since current building regulations stipulate “7” (having just been reduced from “10”)  I thought “3” reasonably achievable especially after talking to friends who work on “new builds” where they had achieved “5.5” occasionally when aiming for “7”. However, when aiming for “below 1”, the laws of diminishing returns are stacked heavily against you and the gradient of the reward curve is steeper than a hockey stick. Halving the ratio from “6” to “3” is a lot easier than halving the ratio from “3” to “1.5”  and reductions from here on in get harder and harder. We ended up with a ratio of  around “1.1” which is a disappointment since we were aiming at anything below “1”. I am still not sure why “1” – no one gave me a reason why “1” is the holy grail – I sort of feel it is a convenient number to aim for even referred to as the “iconic 1”! Whether the effort involved in reducing the ratio by a further 0.1 is worth the increases in efficiency of the MVHR unit is a job for someone else looking for with a PhD project.
   To give an idea of how small the leaks are that you are chasing when you are trying to get from “1.1” to below “1”; on our final air test we pressured the building took a reading and investigated the drafts – it appeared that our special air tight windows were leaking a little – we cleaned the seals and wiped down the joins and when we re-pressured the building the reading was slightly worse! Removing general London grime had reduced their airtightness. We achieved a reading of “1.12” before plastering the house and we felt that once plastered-boarded and plastered the ratio would reduce further: it did not. The problems were not the taping of the OSB but somewhere else. Still all in all “1.1” is darn good.
2. Airtightness is all about attention to detail and everyone has to learn about air tightness. For instance designers of  boiler flues and ducts need to think about this, when sealing round pipes for boiler flues and exhaust and intake pipes for the MVHR unit as they pass through the “air-tightness” plane with tape in three dimensions is very difficult. Someone needs to build a circular flange that can be taped to the pipe/flue and to the flat external wall separately, just filling the hole with foam is not really a solution! You cannot put light switches and socket boxes on external walls unless you put the back box in a airtight box and seal the cable as it enters the box. Letter boxes have to become just that “letter boxes” outside the air-tightness line. Cat flaps – forget it train the beasts to live in a kennel!
3. The “Eco-studs” which Knauf supplied are a great solution to the problem of thermal bridging on external wall insulation. However they compress very easily when fastened  which can result in an undulating wall. You cannot just tighten the screw, to lose the screw heads you have to drill and countersink the OSB strips on the Eco-stud – not a problem but a labour intensive. A lesson learnt. Maybe the studs need a form of insert/stiffener to stop the compression. A very good product that needs a little refining.
4. Builders are going to have to become geeks or at least friends with geeks. Computers are becoming more and more important and require technical knowledge that most builders don’t have. Luckily I know people who know these things but to be told “there is a software glitch in the serial bus connection” means little to me.
5. Us builders are going to talk more and more about temperature gradients and dew points to clients as insulation levels increase. We should also know what this means and what the implications are; if we slap some polystyrene-backed plasterboard onto a cold north-facing wall when renovating a utility room will we have dry rot forming in the floor joists from the resulting condensation! Also how much condescension (sic) will we get in the uninsulated conservancy (sic) when the rest of the building is air tight? This is all going to become more and more of a problem. If the education is not there in several years time we are going to have problems – a bit like when flat roofs arrived in the 1960s and no one had thought to publicise the condensation problems that would arrive above bathrooms and kitchens. “Cold” or “Warm” roof theory was not appreciated by the general builder in the early days of slapping on three layers of bitumen felt.
6. There needs to be an evaluation of how much technical management of heating controls is necessary and which are relevant to what system. There has to be a point where the increase in efficiency is not worth the increase in complexity of the system. For instance, if your heating source for the house is conventional wet underfloor heating system where the water is blended at the manifold then, is there a need for a central heating return to be thermostatically controlled and recirculated rather than returning to the boiler before recirculating? Obviously not (I think but I may be wrong). For normal radiators I can see the point of recirculating the return until it drops below a certain temperature and then re-heating it but I would be interested to know how effective this is. For how large a system would this be impractical. There must be a point when the recirculated un-reheated water got half way round the system it is now cooling the radiators. In a research lab I can see the theory being conceived and in test houses I can see it producing results but in practice – I am not so sure. External temperature compensator – again the theory sounds to me as if it works in the computer model but not for the client when she gets out of bed in the morning!

• Most consistent and continued ignorance of basic Highway Code
• Most ridiculous use of lycra
• Energy efficient award for overuse of bike and clothing lighting
• Most defined calves
• The most outrageous red-light jumping/use of pavement manoeuvre
• Distraction award: For outstanding multitasking on two wheels. To largely be focused on the use of mobile devices
• Tunnel vision award: For those that show the consistent ability to ignore surrounding activity

I need some help. Any glaring omissions?

For those not up to speed on this – shame on you – my wife and I bought a completely clapped out Victorian property in Tooting South London (see below) just over a year ago. We’ve cleared it out, done some urgent works on it, ahead of a more ambitious refurb to come.

So what now? Well accept that we can’t get everything right. For a start we progressed with repairing and draught-proofing our windows last year without incorporating whizzy new types of high-efficient panes. Secondly we got the roof repaired and didn’t incorporate solar thermal at the same time. No reason to return to that.

I need to kick back into gear into the research front. Such is the pace of debate and new research/products/solutions out there things have probably changed quite radically since we started looking into it last year.

I will now allow any businesses to shamelessly plug their products or services in the comment box. I am now a buyer so sell me stuff now.

• How much influence will the Lib Dems have on Government green policy? Nick Clegg’s outfit had a lot more concrete to offer on this area, including on existing stock. Will this be heard by a Conservative Party in which scepticism on environmental issues is more prevalent? What will the policy on nuclear be?
• Passiv at scale: Momentum is building amongst green circles around Passivhaus. But how scalable is using these techniques in areas such as housing or schools?
• Existing stock: As I mentioned the Lib Dems offered some specific policies on this, as did Labour. However you still feel there are key drivers to get this happening to scale missing. Can broader political ideas such as localism or the big society help?
• Sustainability and property: There’s the mother of all headaches for the property sector to deal with this year, the Carbon Reduction Commitment. Can we offer more encouragement for developers, funders and agents to drive the sustainability agenda in the sector?

Boris is due to unveil his new strategy for London Underground investment later today. I’m presuming he’s looking to simplify any new structure that is put into place. I still remember former GLA transport boss Bob Kiley describing the PPP as  “the most complicated contract system in the history of Western civilisation” at the Labour Party conference back in 2001. PPP wasted time and plenty of money, neither of which are things that Boris has much of right now.

N.B./plug – For post election green debate to go Sustainability Now next week.