calfordseaden assisted Town & Country Housing Group in arranging an open day on 2^nd July for their true, low carbon demonstration house in Hawkhurst, in which we acted as employer's agent, sustainability M&E adviser, code assessor and CDM coordinator.

Our sustainability and mechanical and electrical engineering expert, Terry Keech, gave a short presentation explaining the special features of the house and how he and Town & Country will be able to monitor it via the internet, as well as valuable feedback from the tenants.

Developed in partnership with Denne Construction and calfordseaden, and supported by the Homes & Communities Agency, Fieldways has been used to test and demonstrate the building techniques and technologies that house builders will need to use in the future in order to comply with the future 'Zero Carbon Homes' aspirations.

This house achieves Level 5 under the Code for Sustainable Homes, the first in the area. It provides an important insight into what houses of the future may be like and has been designed to be in keeping with the existing homes in the area.

Key features include:

Very high levels of insulation

Thin joint block work construction

Local & sustainably sourced materials

Triple glazed timber windows

Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery

Solar electric and solar hot water panels

A ground source heat pump

'Smart' metering

Water efficient fittings

Rainwater harvesting and permeable paving

Natural low toxin paints

Lifetime Homes compliant

Internal and external recycling facilities

Learning from the individual elements of the scheme in terms of construction and feedback from the residents will be used to inform other projects, including 'retrofit' situations.  This low carbon house provides a pleasant place to live, with energy bills that should be considerably lower.

 Paul White, Design & Quality Manager at Town and Country expressed his gratitude:

 "I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you very much to you all for the support calfordseaden gave to Town & Country Housing Group for last Friday's event.   The organisation of the event provided by calfordseaden was absolutely excellent and set us up for a very successful afternoon. And, of course, Terry's expertise, support and enthusiasm on the day and over the life of the project was also exceptional.

Many thanks to Angela Lemon (and the support team too) for dealing with all my questions during the construction phase and managing the site so well as ever.   We have received some excellent feedback on the event and for what we have produced. The Head of Housebuilding at the Zero Carbon Hub, Rob Pannell, remarked on Friday that of all the low carbon houses he's seen across the country he believes ours is the best one so far!   I look forward to working with calfordseaden, to continue the learning from the project and hopefully to obtain the recognition I feel we all deserve amongst the organisations and local authorities with which we work."

"Rob Pannell (Head of House Building, Zero Carbon Hub) regards the Hawkhurst scheme as a very credible  development with tremendous potential for mass scale re-production - one of the best projects he has seen across the UK to date."

The project has also featured in South East Housing News and the Kent and Sussex Courier.

For further information contact:

Terry Keech
at our Orpington office

 T: 01689 888222
E: tkeech@calfordseaden.co.uk