The experimental ‘Kingdom House’ is being trialled as a sustainability house, to test different technologies and determine which elements could be incorporated into future affordable housing projects.

The house has been designed by Oliver and Robb Architects to meet stringent standards set down by Passivhaus, Eco Homes and the Code for Sustainable Homes and David Tibbs, partner with Oliver and Robb, said: "The Kingdom House is designed to Passivhaus standards which take a holistic approach to providing a very low energy building by designing and building to extremely high standards."

He added: "It incorporates Modern Methods of Construction and renewable technologies, to find a cost effective solution to provide high levels of comfort and air quality while addressing fuel poverty, the system being used is an enhanced ‘Supawall Plus’ system and exceeds the CO2 emission targets for 2010, 2013 and 2016."

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The panels were delivered to the site last week and erected the same day, making the house wind and watertight.

Alan McGuckin, Kingdom’s Chief Executive, said: "This is a very interesting project and it will assist the Alliance with their ongoing research into appropriate forms of Modern Methods of Construction and sustainability features. The technology used will be monitored for a period of two years and this will allow us to assess what is successful and to identify the areas we would hope to prioritise in the future."

Campion Homes, has been appointed as the main Contractor for the project and Dougie Herd, Construction Director with Campion, said: "We are delighted to be the Partnering Contractor for this innovative project, involving new technologies and building systems. It is intended that the project will act as a learning experience that can be repeated on future enhanced specification projects that we are taking forward with Kingdom."

To reduce the energy use within the house there are a number of renewable technologies being included, such as, Solar Water Panels, to pre-heat the hot water; Photovoltaic’s, to convert sunlight into electricity, and an Air Source Heat Pump, which converts free energy from the air and upgrades it to a higher temperature to heat the water for the heating system.

The project is being 60% funded by Grant assistance from the Scottish Government and through energy efficiency grants from The Community and Renewables Scheme (CARES) and the Renewable Construction Programme; the balance of the funding is financed by Kingdom.

The project will be completed early September and Kingdom also intends to hold an Open Day, to allow the local Community to view the property once it has been completed.

(GK)