The future of Eco

Stelrad Radiators has seen its award winning energy saving radiator Radical specified in the latest Eco House built on the campus at Nottingham University. The Mark Group Eco House – officially opened by Dick Strawbridge in October – has been designed and built with a range of highly energy efficient heating and ventilation technologies and built-in monitoring devices so the students at the University in the Department of Architecture and the Built Environment can assess the benefits of different technologies and how they interact with each other in a real home environment. Its aim is to demonstrate how they might be used to improve the energy efficiency of social housing stock and tackle fuel poverty. Not all the technology included in the house is brand new, but in many cases, it’s the first time that the technologies utilised have been integrated in a home. Stelrad is one of thirteen industry partners that have supplied equipment and the home utilises fifteen different energy saving and generating technologies.

The home features huge amounts of insulation, including external wall insulation with a decorative finish, solar PV, solar thermal, air source heat pumps and an integrated rainwater harvesting system. There’s a heat recovery ventilation system ensuring enough fresh air comes into the home which is otherwise effectively hermetically sealed. The home features sun pipes bringing natural light into much of the property, triple glazed uPVC windows in the home and the conservatory and whilst it has an underfloor heating system on the ground floor, the designers chose Radical radiators from Stelrad for the first floor.

Bill Rumble, Mark Group’s chief commercial officer, said: “A staggering 2.4m homes in the UK are still classed as being fuel poor and as we work very closely with local authorities and social housing providers nationwide, it made perfect sense to use this house to demonstrate what is possible to achieve. The EcoHouse is a concept house. No one else has combined this selection of technologies in a property to date and visitors will therefore be able to explore the possibilities for their own housing stock, helping them to realise their full potential for saving and generating energy.”

Stelrad’s managing director Mike Conlon is delighted that Stelrad Radicals were included in this exciting project: “Serial feed radiators like the Radical, are still a relatively new concept here in the UK and they offer a genuine and independently assessed 10.5% energy saving over conventional radiators. We’re seeing a rapidly escalating level of interest in the Radical now it’s becoming accepted that the radiators you choose can have a significant effect on energy use and energy saving, and we’re pleased to be able to help illustrate the benefits of specifying Radical radiators in new build and retrofit projects can offer. We know of a number of projects, particularly in social housing and commercial build programmes where Radicals are installed and delivering very worthwhile savings and we’re expecting 2014 to be a very good year for the Radical as more and more people become aware of the benefits associated with their installation.”