British VELUX Model Home 2020 project breaks new ground

VELUX Company Ltd marked the start of construction on its ModelHome 2020 project with a groundbreaking ceremony on the site where it will build two zero carbon homes in Rothwell, Kettering, on Wednesday 22nd September.
The ceremony was attended by Lord Best, President of the Local Government Association and Chair of the Hanover Housing Group, as well as the project's partners, including HTA Architects, Willmott Dixon, Kettering Borough Council and the North Nothants Development Company (NNDC).
Intended to act as a standard for future sustainable design, the two three bedroom and four bedroom CarbonLight Homes will be located within the second phase of Bovis Homes' Charter Park development. Designed to deliver a 70% reduction in carbon emissions the remaining 30% will be offset through allowable solutions. This will include the retrofitting of the existing local housing stock and off-site renewable electricity generation.
As well as substantially reducing carbon emissions, VELUX Company Ltd. has designed the homes so that they are easily replicable for the mass housebuilder and appeal to buyers, embracing modern lifestyles. Incorporating air source heat pumps with individual biomass stoves and VELUX solar hot water system, the CarbonLight Homes have high levels of daylight and natural ventilation, promoting a healthy indoor climate.
Construction of the two CarbonLight Homes will start in November, with the build process available to watch via time delay video on the British VELUX website: www.velux.co.uk. Completion is expected in March 2011, when the two houses will be opened to the public for six months. They will then be sold and become the subject of post occupancy performance monitoring, with the findings used to help inform the future sustainable housing agenda.
Kevin Brennan, Head of Sustainability, VELUX Company Ltd, comments: "Groundbreaking represents an exciting next step for the Model Home 2020 project. The project's partners are committed to building sustainable homes that promote a practical, comfortable and healthy living environment and I look forward to throwing open the doors of the two CarbonLight Homes to the homebuying public as well as the sustainable housing debate."
Lord Best, President of the Local Government Association and Chair of the Hanover Housing Group, also comments:"The industry is desperately lacking in the research needed to be able to produce homes that are energy efficient and promote the health of the occupant at a low cost, so I am grateful to the Model Homes 2020 project team for looking at the science behind it. We've become accustomed to smaller space standards but the four bedroom house, which forms part of the project, is 180 sq ft and both have generously-sized windows – places you would expect to live for a lifetime. I very much look forward to returning to see the CarbonLight Homes, once completed."
The design and build of the two CarbonLight Homes in Rothwell, Kettering forms part of VELUX continued efforts to put health and wellbeing at the forefront of sustainable housing design.