Insulation, Solar Panels, Heat Pumps and Wind Turbines From Mark Group

Lambeth Housing

December 2007

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Leicester based The MARK group – specialists in whole house energy efficiency solutions – were commissioned by Lambeth Council to install cavity wall insulation into the local authority’s 34,000 strong housing stock.

With a £500,000 budget spread over two years, work began on the project at the start of 2006 with 9,000 properties in the Lambeth Housing portfolio initially surveyed by the Mark Group for cavity wall insulation.

The Mark Group can boast around 30 years of experience of installing traditional cavity wall insulation. It is this experience that gives customers like Lambeth Housing confidence that this complex technical work is carried out competently and conscientiously.

An uninsulated home can lose around a third of its heat through its walls. House holders can make significant savings on energy bills by insulating the cavity between the walls. For instance if everyone in the UK installed loft insulation up to 270mm thickness, the equivalent savings would pay the energy bills of 640,000 families in the UK. In terms of environmental benefits, once again if everyone in the UK installed loft insulation up to 270mm thickness it would cut carbon emissions by 7 million tonnes – enough carbon dioxide to fill the new Wembley stadium 900 times over. Each home alone can make individual savings of around 1 tonne of CO2 per year, so in a large scale project such as Lambeth’s housing stock the benefits are substantial.
The Mark Group installs high quality glass and rock fibre supplied by international manufacturers Knauf and Rockwool. All of the Mark Group installing technicians are trained and certificated to the highest standards of the British Board of Agreement.

Mark Group technicians, working in teams of two with a maximum of four teams working at any one time, completed the first insulation round of 9,000 properties in nine months, after beginning the work in February 2006. Initially the properties were surveyed for suitability, with any homes of a solid wall or timber frame construction (none so in this case) ruled out for cavity wall insulation. The surveys were carried out at a rate of around 500 per week, with work undertaken on an estate by estate basis. Once the surveys were complete the work on insulating the properties began in earnest.

Mark Group has now installed cavity wall insulation in 9,000 properties of Lambeth’s Housing stock. A further 23,000 properties will be surveyed during 2007 to assess their suitability for cavity wall insulation.

Ian Phillips, Senior Programme manager at Lambeth Council, said: “In the preparation and execution of a project of this size, Mark Group has worked closely with the Housing Property Services Department, identifying and creating a programme to enable efficient use of resources and expenditure to ensure maximum benefit to us as a client.”

Mr Phillips added that the properties identified for insulation will have increased SAP ratings and are expected to make savings on their energy bills of around £100 a year. Once assessment is completed it’s planned for a further 7,000 properties to be insulated by the end of 2007. If all properties prove suitable for cavity wall insulation, the projects objectives are to have all 34,000 of Lambeth’s housing stock insulated by next year.

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