Elm House, Thetford
Project Overview
Project: Refurbishment & reconfiguration of 1960s daycare centre to provide emergency housing
Client: Breckland District Council
Contract value: £1.5m
Breckland District Council (BDC) wished to refurbish and upgrade a disused and deteriorating former community day care centre. Their aim, to provide high quality short to medium term housing for the vulnerable and those in need: individuals and families waiting for permanent homes to become available. To help meet the Council’s Net-zero ambitions to do as much possible to tackle climate change it was important that sustainability and environmental factors were given priority on the project.
Daniel Connal Partnership was appointed by BDC to provide Project Management, Arch. Design, Contract Administration, Cost Consultancy and Principal Designer services on this development. The contractors on the scheme were Cocksedge.
An initial feasibility study confirmed the economic and environmental benefit of a refurbishment project against demolition/rebuild. The alteration and conversion project utilised the existing buildings to provide three self-contained flats and a multi-occupancy house, with individual single/double rooms and a shared communal area created from the existing double height hall. This plan avoided demolition and ensured the building’s embodied carbon was retained.
Elm House, Thetford
Originally constructed in the 1960s, the building was almost totally lacking in insulation. To optimise running costs and reduce energy usage, insulation levels were provided above Building Regulations requirements, together with renewables. We upgraded existing windows and doors reducing heat loss. All flat roof coverings were replaced with highly insulated materials and all external walls were insulted. Upgraded existing windows and doors reducing heat loss. New, efficient boilers upgraded the heating system and photo-voltaic panels were installed, reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Addressing the building’s new purpose, improvements were also made to ensure optimum acoustic separation between the individual living spaces.
The scheme had a number of challenges; in addition to the lack of insulation, the discovery of significantly more asbestos than originally anticipated as well as the identification of an absence of lintels over existing windows which resulted in the roof structure was resting on the uPVC window frames. These issues were all resolved satisfactorily and in a timely manner, although there was an inevitable impact on the programme and budget.
Measures to install insulation, efficient heating & PV panels have dramatically improved the building’s thermal performance which now has a creditable B rating.
Innovative recycling procedures were adopted to reduce building waste going to landfill. This included shredding waste wood for conversion to chipboard, recycling plasterboard back to the gypsum industry for re-processing and redistributing brick rubble back to the building and road construction sectors.
Waste not separated on site was sent to a specialist materials recovery centre which operates a zero waste to landfill policy with all material either recycled or incinerated to generate electricity.
Ultimately, a facility that was a deteriorating eyesore, a magnet for anti-social behaviour/vandalism, and a drain on public finances, has been repurposed and improved in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way, delighting the client:
“In this challenging refurbishment project, Breckland Council was delighted that Cocksedge Building Contractors/Daniel Connal Partnership were able to wholly embrace and prioritise sustainability/energy efficiency measures, which fully meet the Council’s own Net-zero ambitions to do as much as we can to tackle climate change. This vitally important environmentally conscious scheme will help improve the lives of so many individuals and families in and around the Thetford community in their time of need for many years to come.”
Mark Snowden, Project Manager, Breckland Council
We were delighted when Elm House won the Excellence in Sustainability Award at the Norfolk Constructing Excellence Awards, 2022.