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Volume housebuilder creates Code level 6 standard housetypes

10/9/2009

Miller Homes devises range and puts first zero carbon home on sale.

The UK‘s sixth largest housebuilder has taken a lead on zero carbon and created a range of standard housetypes to comply with the zero carbon level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH). Miller Homes has conceived its designs specifically with the aim of achieving the zero carbon target, incorporating such features as roofs at the correct pitch for solar panels.

The housebuilder has no plans to build the homes at volume yet, however. Chief executive Tim Hough told Building4change.com: “There is no point as a business in this environment in launching a standard housetype that costs £50,000 more, which we‘ve confirmed it will.”

Miller Homes got that confirmation from its Miller Zero initiative, under which it has built a single CSH level 6 home, as well as homes to level 1, 3, 4 and 5. The resulting homes at The Pinnacle development, in Merton Rise, Basingstoke, have just gone on sale, making the level 6 unit the first zero carbon home to be marketed by a volume housebuilder on a large-scale site.

The five homes have been built using a range of methods and incorporate various environmental technologies, including ground and air source heat pumps, photovoltaic panels, biomass boiler, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, triple glazed windows, and grey water recycling. The homes will be monitored once occupied, and Miller will look to build on the experience from this initiative in further schemes in an effort to develop learning further and resolve the issues.

Speaking at the launch of Miller Zero Hough said that the trial has been worthwhile: “We feel we've made progress and learned an awful lot from this.” Also at the launch, Home Builders‘ Federation executive chairman Stewart Baseley praised the Miller initiative and said: “We have to make sure that solutions are acceptable to and affordable for our customers. At the moment costs are a very real concern for the industry.”

Speaking at the same event, Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) manager of the exemplar programmes Jayne Lomas said that the agency was committed to zero carbon and would soon be launching a consultation on its own new core standards covering areas such as the trajectory to zero carbon and space standards.

For more information on Miller Zero, go to http://www.millerhomes.co.uk/millerzero.