Free home surveys worth hundreds of pounds are on offer to local visitors by the Centre for Sustainable Energy.
Wiltshire Climate Alliance, working in partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Energy, Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council, has organised Wiltshire and Swindon Green Open Homes, one of the largest Green Open Homes events yet. The event aims to help people interested in making updates to their home energy systems to live more sustainably and fast-track the process by visiting a home that has gone through the transformation. Homes of all sizes are open by appointment with the option of a virtual tour at some.
Ruth Larkin, event coordinator for Wiltshire Climate Alliance said; "We have been overwhelmed with interest from Wiltshire people offering to open their homes, especially in Chippenham, Devizes, Bradford on Avon and Salisbury. Homeowners offer a wealth of knowledge and experience in creating more sustainable homes - sharing what went well as well as what they learnt along the way. Some of the homes will have a professional surveyor from the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) on hand to answer queries and visitors to all homes will be offered a free home survey by CSE’s Futureproof service."
Nick Clack, Senior Retrofit Project Manager at the Centre for Sustainable Energy, said; “We want as many Wiltshire residents as possible to benefit from these great events by finding out how they can improve their own homes to make them warmer, cut carbon and reduce their bills. So, we’re offering those who attend a Green Open Homes event and live in Swindon or Wiltshire County one of our in-depth Futureproof surveys, which normally has a full price of at least £650, completely free to help them on their own home retrofit journey.”
Many successes have been revealed during the curation of this event including a 1930's chalet bungalow in Market Lavington owned by a qualified energy assessor of new and retrofitted homes. A 'whole house strategy' has been employed, including cavity wall insulation, optimum loft insulation, replacement windows and external doors in keeping with the character of the house, heating by pellet boiler and wood stove, hot water from solar thermal and solar panels.
Another interesting example is an architect-owned award-winning home in Bradford on Avon which has been transformed from a poorly constructed 1935 bungalow into a highly energy efficient, low embodied carbon home, with a 90% improvement in energy consumption. The approach to the design was to retain as much of the existing structure as possible, to maximise natural light and passive solar gain.
Adrian, who is opening his Salisbury semi said: "I really am glad I got to hear about this as I’m so conscious that this is far from an easy journey for people. With so much misinformation out there, honest reliable advice and guidance is invaluable."
Cllr Nick Holder, Cabinet Member for Climate Change, said: “It’s great to see that 50 homeowners have already signed up to the Green Open homes event so people can see how they have made their properties more climate friendly.
This is a fantastic opportunity to find out more about the changes you could make and get advice and recommendations from people who are already seeing the benefits from climate-friendly technologies. I would encourage everyone to come along to a Green Open Home in their area.”
Christian Lange who is leading the project for Wiltshire Climate Alliance said;
'"We are delighted that this event will enable people to hear firsthand from homeowners who have gone through the process of updating their homes with all the current technologies to help them make their homes sustainable faster."'
To find homes open near you visit greenopenhomes.net/search – you can enter a postcode and filter by features you are interested in to get a list sorted by distance and a map.
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