Towards Lower Carbon and Increased Comfort Housing

Date:     Wednesday 20 Apr 2011
Time:     18:30 – Tea 6:00pm for 6:30 start
Speaker:     Elena Gaura – Cogent Computing Applied Research Centre www.cogentcomputing.org
Location:     AS124, Coventry University

Abstract:

It is commonly accepted that housing is predominantly designed to meet what the building professionals believe is the need of the building fabric. However, upon implementation, designs do not appear to deliver what was predicted at pre-construction stage. Moreover, there are no tools available to builders, contractors and house owners to help quantify the resulting characteristics of the new buildings and their performance when in use.

The Cogent Computing Applied Research Centre at Coventry University have been developing the necessary sensing and instrumentation tools to examine the true impact of both refurbishments and new designs. The project also brings the further dimension of examining how those living within the property interact with the design. To meet the government’s CO2 reduction targets, reduce energy consumption and help to eliminate fuel poverty, the project will provide valuable and cutting edge research into what is still a developing sector of ‘retrofitting’ buildings for the future.

In this talk Elena explained how the Centre are using ubiquitous computers and brought us bang up to date with where they are with this and other buildings-related projects. Some surprising results were presented, for instance the relative inefficiency of air-source heat pumps.

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