Leamington Spa engineering firm Encraft has been recognised for its work on an eco-house in the Birmingham suburb of Balsall Heath and a project near Warwick.
Retrofit for the Future, a programme to encourage innovative technologies managed by the Technology Strategy Board, has made two prestigious awards to Encraft.
Encraft is an independent consulting engineering firm specialising in microgeneration, on-site renewables and low-carbon buildings.
The awards have been made for Encraft’s work in designing and specifying projects and devising innovative plans for low-carbon retrofits of existing social housing to meet UK government target reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.
Encraft’s project in the rural housing category is for retrofitting three houses at Beausale, near Warwick, on behalf of Warwick District Council, to give a 78 per cent reduction in primary energy requirement and a 95 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
Its second award is for retrofitting a Victorian terraced house in Balsall Heath to give a 73 per cent reduction in primary energy consumption and a 79 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions.
The families living in the houses will benefit from dramatic savings in the energy bills – as much as £1,800 a year each for both the houses in rural Warwickshire and the larger one in Birmingham - and from more effective and efficient heating systems.
And at the same time their carbon footprints will be massively reduced.
Ruth Wilson, chair of Balsall Heath Housing Co-operative, said: "We’re so pleased that this project has won the Retrofit for the Future award, and that one of our houses will be leading the way in Birmingham’s drive towards low-energy, low-carbon technology housing.
"The improvements that will come from the project are enormous - the house will be brought up-to-date, the tenants will have much better, much cheaper heating, and at the same time they’ll produce less carbon dioxide."
