CONTEXT 178 : DECEMBER 2023 31 BUILDINGS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE around 30 years the estate has been installing a lined, flue-based system, with interlocking insulated pumice blocks, saving heat and reducing the risk of fire. In 2016 the Clovelly estate commissioned listed property insulation experts Mitchell and Dickinson to start a major thermal insulation programme. By the time of the most recent energy crisis, the award-winning work to most of the buildings was complete. John Rous says that there was an element of push from the need for energy performance certificates (EPC), but he had already been very aware of heating costs in a village like this. ‘The EPC gave us something like two or three points for all the careful work we did to improve the historic fabric,’ he says, ‘whereas if we had just installed high-heat-retention radiators, we would have earned perhaps 15 points. Going from F to seeking a higher EPC would have pushed us more towards a technology fix rather than the deeper, more carefully thought through work that we actually did.’ Long-term efficiency refurbishment programmes require difficult technological choices. Microgeneration technology is continuously developing, and we now have the government’s current Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). The BUS offers £7,500 towards the capital cost of approved microgeneration equipment on the basis of an EPC. The list of approved Clovelly High Street (Photo: Dan Rigamonti) A festival at Clovelly harbour (Photo: Dan Rigamonti)
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