Barratt Zed House
Working with Energy House Labs, Barratt Developments has built a revolutionary house: the Zed House – the first home in the UK that takes sustainability beyond the current Future Homes Standards.
The new Zed House is based on the popular Barratt ‘Alderney’ house type and is fitted with hundreds of sensors that will record data for Energy House Labs research. It will be occupied by an academic from the University and monitored to assess its performance using the research and expertise of the University’s Energy House Laboratories.
It will be the first new home in the country built by a major housebuilder to go beyond the new Future Homes Standard by delivering a carbon reduction of 125%. Last year, Barratt announced that all of its new homes will be zero carbon by 2030 and this flagship concept house is the first step in achieving that.
It is being developed as an industry showcase home to demonstrate what is achievable, particularly from a mainstream, volume housebuilder. The new home is being built with over 40 leading industry partners from across the housebuilding, sustainability and technology sectors, all helping to broaden knowledge in zero carbon living with the lessons learnt from the construction being shared across the industry.
The new house will feature cutting edge technology such as overhead infrared panels that provide instant zero carbon heat, new air powered showers that will save families hundreds of pounds per year in water and heating bills, plaster which eliminates pollutants giving cleaner, healthier air, a fridge which keeps the right humidity resulting in 60% less food wastage, and innovative heated skirting boards delivering 10% more heat than traditional radiators whilst also saving space.
There will also be a dedicated knowledge and energy hub built into the garage space to display and showcase products and technologies used within the Zed House. Here, visitors to the house will be able to monitor digital displays showing visuals of live energy use via a monitoring network which is built into the fabric of the home.
Zed House will be constructed using the latest building methods incorporating Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) such as such as closed panel timber frames with highly insulated cladding, factory fitted windows and offsite panelised masonry ground floor wall panels, reducing the need for bricklayers and the time it takes to build by half. And it will include the most modern sustainable housing technology such as an air source heat pump, EV charging points, PV solar panels and battery storage.
Outside the Zed House there will be a biodiversity garden featuring nests for bats and swifts, a wildlife pond, hedgehog highways and green wall. The team are using experts from RSPB and Barratt to help promote wildlife and nature at the house, with the garden achieving a gold rating from RSPB.