Eco Open Houses Brighton & Hove

Eco Open Houses Brighton & Hove is an annual collaborative project between Low Carbon Trust, Brighton Permaculture Trust and Brighton & Hove City Council. The event this year is being held on the weekends of 17-18 and 24-25 October and is being run as part of the national Green Open Homes network established with funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and managed by the Centre for Sustainable Energy.

The event aims to inspire the uptake of low carbon (energy efficiency and renewable energy systems) improvements in houses in the city of Brighton and Hove, and includes a talk on low energy Passivhaus construction and refurbishment.

Twelve buildings will be featured, including:

• Five retrofitted homes and four new-built homes.
• Grantham Road, a zero carbon new-built house, which is opening for the first time, and features an air source heat pump, solar PV, rainwater harvesting and underfloor heating.
• The exciting ‘Waste House’ at the University of Brighton, made purely of reused materials.
• Two eco community buildings at Stanmer Park: Earthship Brighton, and the Fruit Factory, a strawbale retrofit of a tractor shed.
• An ex-public convenience converted into a beautiful eco office.

All members of the public are welcome and we will endeavour to make all the houses as accessible as possible to people with mobility needs.

Visitors will either be given a pre-booked tour of a home or they can ‘drop-in’ for an informal look around. The event will enable visitors to see low carbon and renewable energy improvements in-situ, understand how they might be applied in their own situation, talk to ‘real people’ in an independent and impartial environment and be inspired to take action to change their behaviour and / or improve their home.