Last week I was lucky enough to visit Greenfields Community Housing’s new green ’show home’, which demonstrates energy and water saving products to local residents. The house, in Halstead, includes things like heat pumps, electricity-generating solar panels on the roof, and mechanical ventilation to improve air quality in the house and reduce condensation. Automatic lights make sure that only rooms which are being used are lit. Water-saving features include taps which have been set to an efficient flow rate, smaller baths, and a collection system for rainwater, which is treated for use within the house.

The show home demostrates technology which is already available and will give Greenfields an opportunity to see how these technologies perform and which ones are best value for money.

The water-saving tap fittings are one of the pieces of equipment which are already available to all residents in Braintree District through the Tap into Savings home visits, available up to the end of March 2011.

NB – Raven Housing Trust (Tap into Savings’ partner in Surrey) also have an Eco Makeover project, testing out energy and water saving technology with a family in one of their houses.