Annemieke and Tim live in an old stone home in a small village in North Somerset. Their extension was built in the 1970s. Although the extension’s cavity walls are insulated, the room inside is cold and damp, and patches of mould appear on the walls despite Annemieke’s repeated attempts to clean them. Annemieke uses the extension as her home office and is concerned that spending so much time in a mouldy room could be damaging her health.

A not-yet-green open home

The Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) is organising Green Open Homes tours across North Somerset to increase awareness of home energy efficiency improvements, known as retrofit. People can visit local homes and learn about improvements that have made them cosier, cheaper to heat and more environmentally friendly. We’re also running several ‘not-yet-green’ Open Homes events, where our retrofit experts lead visitors around a home and discuss possible improvements that could be made.

Annemieke and Tim volunteered to open their not-yet-green home for a tour. They were excited to receive expert advice on what to do about the mouldy extension but also felt the event could have greater benefits for their community.

Annemieke said:

We wanted to start a discussion about what we can do to improve homes in our community. Many people don’t know where to start when thinking about making their home more efficient, but everyone is looking at their bills and thinking about how they could save energy.

CSE retrofit experts Steve and Amy led a group of Tim and Annemieke’s neighbours on a tour of the home. They discussed simple improvements Tim and Annemieke could make to increase the house’s energy efficiency. The visitors also shared their own experiences and asked questions along the way.

Solving Tim and Annemieke’s mouldy problem

When the group arrived at the extension, Tim shared that he had learned the cavity wall was filled with Vermiculite, an outdated insulation material, which was actually retaining water, making the wall damp.

In winter, the damp walls were leaching out heat, pushing up Tim and Annemieke’s energy bills, and causing mould to grow. Tim and Annemieke didn’t know what to do about the serious problem with their home.

CSE expert Steve was able to advise the group that the cavity wall insulation could be removed, which would allow the wall to dry out and halt the mould.

Annemieke was delighted:

I didn’t know you could remove old wet cavity insulation. I though we needed to knock the whole wall down which would be much pricier than just taking out the Vermiculite!

I learned a lot through the event and I was also really interested in the discussion with everybody about their own homes.

What could you learn about your home?

CSE is organising open home tours across North Somerset as part of the West of England Local Energy Advice Demonstrator project. This project aims to boost the uptake of energy-efficiency home improvements in the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) region.

If you’re interested in attending or organising a tour in North Somerset, email woe-energylead@cse.org.uk.

Not in North Somerset? Check out Bristol Energy Network and Bath & West Community Energy supporting events in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and B&NES.