Cala's First Net-Zero-Carbon-Enabled Home
Highlights
- Cala Homes announces its first net-zero-carbon-enabled home.
- The project tests sustainable technologies in a real-life setting, gathering valuable data for future development.
- The home offers residents a net-zero experience to reduce environmental impact.
Cala Homes has completed their first net-zero-carbon-enabled home. Located in Peterborough's Hampton Lakes, this project is a key test for Cala's net-zero goals and helps guide their future plans.
The four-bedroom home will soon welcome residents helping Cala understand how well these sustainable technologies work in real life. By tracking data and getting feedback from the residents over the year, Cala will learn how practical and effective these features are in everyday use.
This project is the result of teamwork between Cala and its subcontractors. It uses sustainable technologies that have been tested on Cala sites across the UK. The choice of features was also guided by studies and comparisons with similar Cala homes built to current regulations.
What’s learned from the Hampton Lakes home will be crucial for Cala's goal of building net-zero-carbon homes by 2030.
Steve Rule, group technical director at Cala, said: “We have calculated that this home has the potential to use 95% less primary energy compared to the same Cala house type built to current regulations. Early comparative in-situ testing has seen a 40% better thermal performance than our current homes built to the latest regulations, even with all the advances and efficiencies of new homes today. This means it achieves a Heat Loss Parameter (HLP) which ranks it in the ‘excellent’ category of the heat loss scale.
“This is obviously significant for our customers, but it’s important that the customer experience is enhanced. Living in a net-zero-carbon-enabled home should be seamless and that’s something we’ve strived to achieve here.”
The home reflects this philosophy with modern, sustainable methods like timber frames and low-carbon bricks. It includes features such as triple glazing, improved insulation, and advanced technologies such as the following:
- Solar Panels (PV) and Hot Water Diverter
- Air Source Heat Pump
- Battery Storage
- Smart Lighting
- Aerated Showerhead
- Waste Water Heat Recovery
- Underfloor Heating
- Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery System
Cala also has biodiversity measures like bird and bat boxes, bug hotels, rain gardens, bat bricks, hedgehog highways, a vegetable patch, and composting facilities.
Kathryn Dapré, head of sustainability at Cala Group, said: “Our net-zero-carbon enabled home is a positive step forward in our sustainability journey, but what’s important to us is that we take customers on that journey with us. Our Hampton Lakes property therefore aims to integrate sustainable measures into a ‘real’, lived in home – to design the home around the customer, not the technology.
“Gathering real-life, real-time feedback from the people living in this home will help us to understand how the net-zero-carbon enabled home performs both in terms of reducing carbon emissions and for Cala customers.”
The feedback from residents will help understand how net-zero homes reduce carbon emissions and improve living conditions. This initiative supports Cala's broader Sustainability Strategy, aiming for net-zero operational emissions by 2030 and total emissions by 2045. Cala has already cut operational emissions by 28.5% since 2021 and reduced emissions per square meter of developed floor space by 25%.
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Source: Scottish Housing News
