Initial Concepts

It was back in the autumn of 2009 when the design team were meeting for one of the first sessions to look at the strategy for the retrofitting of Cottesmore. The extracted photographs from one of our flip charts shows some of the early development of the roof pod. The rationale went something like this ... the property is back of pavement and there is no space to undertake any external insulation ... well simple, that means we have to use internal insulation, but how much ... some of us have heard about vacuum packed material, but it might be difficult to fit, really far too expensive, not totally proven or all or those ... ok, so we use solid blocks of insulation with an air-tight membrane protected behind to achieve the target u-values for the walls, that won't be too bad as we really only have to treat the external walls to the front and back in the terrace with the highest u-value ... lets draw that on the board ... but do you know how thick the insulation has to be? ... well it depends ... could be 160-200mm ... it is a fairly small house, that would take about 15% of the internal floor area ... well can we compensate for the loss of internal space in any way? ... what about the roof space, we haven't decided over the cold or warm roof options, why don't we put some more usable space upstairs and have a warm roof? ... could we use MMC to do this? ... what? ... modern methods of construction ... what? ... be build it in a factory somewhere off-site and transport it to Leicester ... that sounds a bit complicated and expensive ... I know, but if we really wanted to make this transferable to other properties, shouldn't we innovate a little around the idea of a roof pod ... a one-off might be a little expensive, but if it were to be rolled out for a whole block or street it would be more affordable ... and of course, we are more likely to achieve the quality control around air tightness in a factory context if we use MMC ... what? ... I told you earlier ... oh, yes, you're right you did, I'll try and remember ... so what if we did that, would we get any useful space upstairs? ... well we are limited by the roof pitch but if we dropped the second floor ceiling by a few inches we could get a little more space, I think it might be worth it ... ok, let's draw it, it is only a grant application and probably a long shot ... might be a good selling point for the bid ...

I think the concept and resultant strategy now being followed is the most exciting part of the proposal and probably the element that will have the highest public profile as it is happening.