CURRENT RESEARCH

CURRENT PROJECTS

'Bridging' the fabric 'performance gap' Summary of the results obtained from undertaking a series of coheating tests on two separate Passivhaus developments in the North of England. The coheating tests were undertaken as part of a Technology Strategy Board Building Performance Evaluation post-construction and initial occupation project.
Building Performance Evaluation Building Performance Evaluation, or BPE as it is more commonly known, is the process of evaluating the performance of a building.
		International Energy Agency: Annex 58 Reliable building energy performance characterisation based on full scale dynamic measurement.
		Elm Tree Mews The Elm Tree Mews field trial - Joseph Rowntree Foundation Project Ref No. 805319
		CCC – Carbon, Control and Comfort User-centred control systems for comfort, carbon-saving and energy management. The aim is to achieve a 20% reduction in energy use through working more effectively with existing technologies and building fabrics, via the development of control systems which are both convenient to use and appropriate to the needs of users with a variety of lifestyles.
		Temple Avenue Project Evaluation of design & construction process and measurement of fabric performance of 2 prototype dwellings and the refurbishment of 1 existing dwelling. The two prototype dwellings contained some technological innovation and were constructed between July and December 2009. One prototype was constructed using thin-joint masonry construction and a second using a structural insulated panel (SIPs) build system.
		Low Carbon Housing Learning Zone It will be of interest to all individuals who are responsible for designing, constructing and managing dwellings; and of particular interest to those committed to developing low carbon solutions, meeting higher levels of the Code for Sustainable Homes or aiming for the 2016 Zero Carbon Homes target.
		Stamford Brook Retrospective The Stamford Brook Energy Performance Project will explore the extent to which a restricted data set, focussing on energy consumption and other key measurements, is able to both provide data on the scale of consumption and also explain the essential characteristics of the consumption pattern and its determinants.
		Eurisol Study Study to investigate solutions to the Cavity Party Wall Thermal Bypass. This project attempts to quantify the bypass effect in more detail and also to evaluate whether filling the party wall cavity with mineral fibre insulation will eliminate or significantly reduce the heat loss due to the thermal bypass that operates in most cavity party walls.
COMPLETED PROJECTS
		Stamford Brook Evaluating the Impact of an Enhanced Energy Performance Standard on Load-bearing Masonry Domestic Construction Partners in Innovation CI 39/3/663 - BD2324
		Harrogate Heat Pumps Evaluation of Heat Pump Installations: Extracting Meaning from Existing Data Sets
		Air Tightness of Buildings - Towards Higher Performance Domestic sector airtightness (C1 61/6/16 BD2429)
		Condensation Risk Impact of Improvement to Part L & Robust Details on Part C. (CI 71/6/1 BD2414)
		UrbanBuzz – LowCarb4Real Developing Low Carbon Housing; Lessons from the field - UrbanBuzz Project
		St. Nicholas Court A Trial of Dwelling Energy Performance Standards for 2008
		York Energy Demonstration Project Energy Efficient Modernisation of Housing: A UK Case Study In common with many energy demonstration projects, the York Project had two main aims. The first was to confirm that the application of readily available technology could deliver significant energy benefits within the context of a routine local authority housing modernisation programme. The second was to extract lessons for the operation of future energy conscious modernisation schemes.
		TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE HOUSING: Building regulation for the 21st century Report prepared for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
		Derwentside A Field Trial of Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery in Local Authority, Low Rise Housing. The Derwentside Project was set up to explore the application of balanced whole-house mechanical ventilation with heat recovery within the existing UK housing stock, through the medium of a field trial of the technology in a small number of occupied dwellings.
		Coheating Test Protcol Whole House Heat Loss Test Method
		Review of the implementation of Part L 2006 A retrospective view of the working of Part L 2006 to inform the 2010 edition. BD 2702
		Fabric Insulation – (Project L1) Ways of further raising performance standards for all types of building fabric. (CI 71/6/15 BD2428)
		Flood Resilient Construction Improving the Flood Resilience of Buildings through Improved Materials Methods and Details

PROJECT POSTERS

Poster 1
Poster 2
Poster 3

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Palmer J, Pane G, Bell M & Wingfield J (2011)
Comparing primary and secondary terms analysis and re-normalisation (PStar) test and co-heating test results. A Report to the Department for Communities and Local Government, HMSO, London. ISBN: 978 1 4098 2902 7

Boait PJ, Fana D & Stafford A (2011)
Performance and control of domestic ground-source heat pumps in retrofit installations.

Wingfield J, Johnston D, Miles-Shenton D & Bell M (2010)
Whole House Heat Loss Test Method (Coheating). Centre for the Built Environment, Leeds Metropolitan University

Wingfield J (2010)
Measurement of Thermal Bypasses, Centre for the Built Environment, Leeds Metropolitan University

Bell M (2005)
Learning to Tango: Sustainable Development and the Multidisciplinary Dream. In the conference proceedings of The 2005 World Sustainable Building Conference, Tokyo, 27-29 September 2005. http://www.sb05.com

Bell M (2004)
Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings: The Role of Building Regulations. In COBRA 2004 Proc. Of the RICS Foundation Construction and Building Research Conference. Edited by Robert Ellis and Malcolm Bell, London, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Gardner A & Bell M (2004)
Andrew Gardner and Malcolm Bell (2004) Energy Efficiency in Housing: An Evaluation of the importance of increased wall thickness on housing developments. In COBRA 2004 Proc. Of the RICS Foundation Construction and Building Research Conference. Edited by Robert Ellis and Malcolm Bell, London, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Johnston D, Miles Shenton D, Wingfield J & Bell M (2004)
Airtightness of UK Dwellings: some recent measurements. In COBRA 2004 Proc. Of the RICS Foundation Construction and Building Research Conference. Edited by Robert Ellis and Malcolm Bell, London, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Bell M & Overend P (2001)
Building Regulation and Energy Efficiency in Timber Frame Housing. In COBRA 2001 Proc. Of the RICS Foundation Construction and Building Research Conference. Edited by John Kelly and Kirsty Hunter, Glasgow Caledonian University, 3-5 September 2001, London, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Bell M & Lowe R (1999)
Sustainability and the Development of an Energy Efficient Housing Stock: a review of some theoretical issues. In The Challenge of Change: Construction and Building for the new Millennium. Edited by D Baldry and L Ruddock. Proceedings of the Construction and Building Research Conference. University of Salford Sept 1999. London, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Lowe R & Bell M (1998)
Towards Sustainable Housing: building regulation for the 21st century. A report prepared for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Leeds Metropolitan University. This report identified a range of technical, regulatory and policy developments to be pursued to secure a significant reduction in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from dwellings as part of the 2000 & 2005 Building Regulations reviews. Many of the issues raised are just as relevant now as they were when this was published.