Gloucester City Homes (GCH) is proud to support the National Housing Federation’s new initiative “Homes at the Heart”. The campaign aims to bring social housing providers together to create a “once-in-a-generation investment in social housing” to make sure that everyone has a safe, secure, and comfortable place to call home.
The theme of the campaign this week is Homes at the Heart of a Greener Country. We are proud that all of our homes meet both the Gloucester Homes Standard and Decent Homes Standard. Both our Development and Asset Management Team work hard to create new properties and maintain old ones to the highest standard to protect the environment.
Our Development Team have taken two main initiatives to ensure they are being as environmentally friendly as possible in the construction and delivery of new properties. These are:
Installation of Switchee Devices into New Build Properties:
We have recently installed the first Switchee devices into new build properties. The device is a smart thermostat system that allows residents to heat their property more efficiently.
By adjusting to occupancy patterns and local weather, the Switchee smart thermostat can reduce the amount of time the home is heated, thus saving energy, cutting CO2 emissions and reducing household bills.
On average the Switchee systems amount to a 10% heating cost reduction, this is directly saving residents money and having a positive effect on our properties environmental performance.
New Methods of Construction:
We are trialling new methods of construction to reduce the energy consumption and carbon production of future tenants. The changes include super insulated and air-tight properties, using ‘passivhaus principles’ and the installation of car charging ports and air source heat pumps. The properties will contribute to GCH’s environmental improvement targets and inform future strategy and specification developments.
As well as this our Asset Management Team are continually seeking to make our current homes the best they can be by retrofitting assets such as doors, windows and external adaptations to improve properties, with over £4.8million spent on this in 19/20. Including:
- 76 Doors
- 136 External Decoration
- 176 Roof Replacements
- 79 Major Adaptations
- 200 Windows
- 17 Bathrooms
- 67 External Adaptations
- 200 Blocks Upgraded for Fire Safety
- 52 Kitchens
- 168 External Work
- 145 Heating Upgrades
- 96 Complete Rewires
