WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.130 --> 00:00:02.680 This is a normal British terraced house. 2 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:05.130 It was built around the turn of the 20th century 3 00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:09.250 out of bricks, mortar and a lot of manual labour. 4 00:00:09.250 --> 00:00:12.200 Kitchen, living room and a set of stairs in the middle 5 00:00:12.200 --> 00:00:14.890 that lead up to two bedrooms and a bathroom. 6 00:00:14.890 --> 00:00:17.349 And although the exact details might be different, 7 00:00:17.349 --> 00:00:21.319 about one in five houses in Britain look roughly like this, 8 00:00:21.319 --> 00:00:24.199 all built in a row. 9 00:00:24.199 --> 00:00:28.220 The trouble is, houses like this weren’t built to save energy 10 00:00:28.220 --> 00:00:31.689 or to keep the heat in on a cold winter’s day. 11 00:00:31.689 --> 00:00:34.080 Energy efficiency wasn’t really a thing a century ago 12 00:00:34.080 --> 00:00:38.300 and while there are all sorts of plans to modernise and retrofit houses: 13 00:00:38.300 --> 00:00:39.560 How do you know which plans will work? 14 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:41.760 How do you do a controlled experiment 15 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:46.010 when every house is different and the weather constantly changes? 16 00:00:46.010 --> 00:00:47.970 It would be great if you could just, you know... 17 00:00:47.970 --> 00:00:49.370 tell the sun what to do. 18 00:00:49.370 --> 00:00:52.620 We are in the Salford Energy House 19 00:00:52.620 --> 00:00:57.240 which is the only whole building in a climate controlled chamber. 20 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:00.329 The idea really was to take a Victorian house 21 00:01:00.329 --> 00:01:03.170 and look at different ways that we can make it more energy efficient. 22 00:01:03.170 --> 00:01:06.390 When you test something on its own, like a boiler, 23 00:01:06.390 --> 00:01:11.460 you sit it in a lab and you test it and it will be X% efficient. 24 00:01:11.460 --> 00:01:15.780 When you actually put that in a whole house or a whole system 25 00:01:15.780 --> 00:01:17.920 it then interacts with all sorts of other things 26 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:20.990 like the fabric, the radiators, the controls, 27 00:01:20.990 --> 00:01:23.520 so understanding how things fit together as a whole house 28 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:25.250 is really, really important. 29 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:29.139 This isn’t some close approximation of an old terraced house made with modern techniques. 30 00:01:29.139 --> 00:01:32.430 This was a genuine end of terrace house from out in Manchester. 31 00:01:32.430 --> 00:01:36.030 It was taken apart and then rebuilt piece by piece here 32 00:01:36.030 --> 00:01:39.859 in an environmental test chamber at the University of Salford. 33 00:01:39.859 --> 00:01:43.000 We had to get a bricklayer, the bricklayer was like 70 years old, 34 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:47.270 because actually the way that the bricks were laid in Victorian times, 35 00:01:47.270 --> 00:01:48.499 nobody does it like that anymore. 36 00:01:48.499 --> 00:01:51.630 He said he'd not laid bricks like that since he was a trainee. 37 00:01:51.630 --> 00:01:54.780 We’ve got, I would say, hundreds of sensors. 38 00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:58.280 Every single appliance is monitored individually. 39 00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:00.599 What we can do here is also simulate human activity. 40 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:03.499 We have actuators, so robotic arms 41 00:02:03.499 --> 00:02:08.420 which will replicate the opening and closing of doors, fridges, windows. 42 00:02:08.420 --> 00:02:10.560 We can turn appliances on and off. 43 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:12.330 Here we control the weather. 44 00:02:12.330 --> 00:02:15.850 We have a space next door with a big water tank 45 00:02:15.850 --> 00:02:18.990 and there are layers of piping that run round 46 00:02:18.990 --> 00:02:22.310 that will push rain onto the side of the building 47 00:02:22.310 --> 00:02:25.490 because rain never falls down, it always comes sideways. 48 00:02:25.490 --> 00:02:28.560 And then we also have a snow machine, 49 00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:30.490 and we also have wind machines, 50 00:02:30.490 --> 00:02:31.640 and we have a lighting system. 51 00:02:31.640 --> 00:02:39.070 So that’s just radiant heating lamps connected to a theatre lighting control system 52 00:02:39.070 --> 00:02:41.920 so the sun can pass round the building. 53 00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:45.340 All of those things can make a huge difference to the way a building performs. 54 00:02:45.340 --> 00:02:49.400 The first really big test we did, which was a whole house retrofit, 55 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:53.010 we attached wall insulation, we improved the doors and the windows 56 00:02:53.010 --> 00:02:55.570 and we improved the floor 57 00:02:55.570 --> 00:02:58.670 and we reduced the heating energy by more than 60%. 58 00:02:58.670 --> 00:03:01.210 There’s always a trade off with experiments like this. 59 00:03:01.210 --> 00:03:03.680 Yes, heating and cooling a large building 60 00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:06.040 that is inside another building 61 00:03:06.040 --> 00:03:08.560 is not massively energy efficient in itself, 62 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:10.380 but compared to other industrial processes, 63 00:03:10.380 --> 00:03:11.590 it’s not that bad. 64 00:03:11.590 --> 00:03:14.900 And if spending a little energy here saves a lot elsewhere, 65 00:03:14.900 --> 00:03:17.940 well that’s probably worth it. 66 00:03:17.940 --> 00:03:20.260 Thank you very much to everyone at the Energy House 67 00:03:20.260 --> 00:03:22.030 and the University of Salford School of Built Environment. 68 00:03:22.030 --> 00:03:24.060 You can see their YouTube channel here 69 00:03:24.060 --> 00:03:26.290 or pull down the description for more about them and about the house.