In 1995, a house was built in Oxfordshire that was very different to other homes. The house was built with the goal of showing people that it was perfectly possible to live a happy and modern lifestyle whilst using renewable energy. At this time, energy efficiency and renewable energy were things that were seldom, if ever mentioned when it came to building homes and there weren’t people like this solar panel installation Clevedon based company //redbridgeandsons.co.uk/solar-pv-panels/solar-panel-installation-clevedon/ adding solar panels to people’s homes on a daily basis. In fact, solar power was seen as something a bit futuristic and something that not many people thought about.
The Oxford eco house is still standing today however and remains an inspiration for how it is certainly possible to build a home and live a normal lifestyle whilst using renewable energy.
One of the most important features of this pioneering home was the roof. Instead of using slate tiles, as was common at the time, its roof was a fully integrated solar array, which could produce both electricity and heat water. The panels on the house are positioned in a way that enables it to capture the most of the sun in the day to really make the most of the power available. At the time, this cost around £18,000, which shows just how unusual solar power was back then.
Nowadays, many homes have solar power, and more and more people are realising the benefits of having solar panels added to their homes, both for the environment and also for reducing energy costs.
As well as being able to capture the energy of the sun, this home was also designed to cool off at night – something that many people have been struggling with over the summer! The house has thick walls and windows that are created to ensure that the house doesn’t get overheated and that it can naturally lose that heat overnight making sleeping comfortable in the summer months.
In addition to this brilliant design, the house is still producing more energy than it uses. Even 31 years after being built, the house is still putting double the amount of energy that it uses back into the National grid. Considering that this is a property that was designed and built over 30 years ago, when solar panels and the technology was in its infancy, it is a remarkable achievement and shows what can be done with ingenuity and forward thinking.
