To be sure we know the best means of improving the current housing stock, and of building the most efficient new stock, we need to understand how homes use energy, and which adaptations are the most effective. There may well be different answers for different types of building.
As a first step, English Heritage is beginning a long-term research programme called 'Hearth and Home'. Collaborating with local authorities, we are selecting 20 inhabited Victorian terrace houses, which we will use to work out the best ways of measuring energy use. When we have developed a robust method we will use it to monitor the buildings, first as they are used without adaptations and then to test the effects of different adaptations (such as roof insulation). The results will be interpreted in terms of whole-life costs, so that we can offer the best possible guidance. We aim to use this website to keep you up to date with progress.
The English Heritage Research Strategy for 2005 to 2010 has identified climate change as an important theme for our future research.
English Heritage will seek to work with a wide range of partners and will focus our climate change related research on:
- climate change related processes that are immediate (such as the impacts caused by current mitigation and adaptation measures)
- climate change related processes with the highest probability of occurrence (such as responses to sea-level rise, flooding and water shortages)
- learning relevant lessons from the past (including better understanding of climate change mechanisms drawn from the record of long-term environmental change and sustainable approaches to living drawn from past societies)
- initiatives to improve our ability to monitor the impacts of climate change on the historic environment
- initiatives to improve our ability to predict changes to the historic environment arising from climate change (such as modelling based on the forthcoming UKCIP08 scenarios)
- supporting decision making for the long-term (such as the long-term suitability of tree species for planting in historic landscapes or the appropriateness of investment in particular coastal defence schemes, both of which need to consider the implications of up to 100 years of climate change)
- topics which ensure that the historic environment is fully integrated with government objectives (such as research to understand and improve the energy efficiency of historic buildings and research on the cost-effectiveness of differing options for mitigation and adaptation)
- the future management of our estate in a changing climate.
Discovering the Past: Shaping the Future, Research Strategy 2005-2010
English Heritage’s Research Strategy
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