Channel 4 has commissioned North One to produce Guy Martin’s House Without Bills, where viewers will be shown how to reduce their rising energy costs to nothing.
With electricity and gas payments becoming an ever bigger part of household bills Guy Martin will be attempting to transform an average family house into a cutting edge eco home with zero energy costs.
The 90’ feature-length special by the All3Media backed indie follows the nine-month renovation of a semi-detached house in the Manchester suburb of Stretford, with the ultimate aim of driving its heating bills as low as possible.
This involves a total eco-transformation to Passivhaus standards, the ultra-low energy building certification, with Guy Martin working on each of the key installations.
While viewers will see what it takes to turn an archetypal house into the gold standard of energy efficiency, the show is packed with useful advice and tips for any householder interested in cutting bills and carbon emissions from their home, regardless of budget.
Guy also investigates the broader story of British housing’s future: visiting a converted church in Northumberland, now one of the most energy efficient homes in the country; taking part in home heating experiments at Salford University’s cutting edge Energy House 2.0 research lab and helping to assemble a flat pack home at a revolutionary Merseyside building company.
Back in Stretford, Guy shows off the finished house to a man with money to spend on retro fitting homes just like this one – Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.
The programme has been co-funded by Nesta, the innovation foundation, as part of the organisation’s mission to reduce home carbon emissions in the UK by 30%, by 2030.
Jessica Edwards, Head of Cultural Development at Nesta, said: “Inspired by the Climate Content Pledge, Nesta is delighted to partner with North One and Channel 4 on Guy Martin’s House Without Bills. This project is part of a wider slate of content Nesta is supporting to bring compelling new stories of energy efficient and lower-carbon living to screen.“
North One CEO, Steve Gowans, said: “Heating our homes for less is always a hot topic when it’s cold, and there’s no one better than Guy Martin, a man who is an energy efficiency obsessive, to look into whether it’s actually possible to live without fuel bills.”
Jon Creamer
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