Home that pays the bills: The innovative Future Proof Home with zero-energy bills

How would you like to have a house that not only costs nothing to heat, but also makes money for you by selling electricity to the National Grid?
Zero-energy bills are the future, or at least that is the plan, as you will see at London's Ideal Home Show if you visit the Future Proof Home.
Not only is this Scandinavian-designed and engineered house causing excitement at the show in Olympia, but similar homes are already being built and sold in Northumberland and Cumbria.
Also, if you take a particular fancy to the Future Proof Home, it will be dismantled after the show and sold in conjunction with Northumberland County Council.
The
builders, Trivselhus-by-Esh, say they are open to offers. The company is working with Northumberland County Council to provide low-carbon housing for not only the top end of the market but also for social housing.
The key to the Future Proof Home's no-cost heating claims is photo voltaic panels, designed to create surplus electricity that can be sold to the National Grid, and a "climate shield" that keeps heat inside the house.
This in turn reduces the amount of energy needed to keep the house warm.
So what is a "climate shield"?
Well, it is a neat and much more interesting way of saying that the house is a closed-panel timber frame construction, or as architect and television presenter George Clarke said: "It sounds like something off Star Wars, which I quite like, and it is basically a thermal airtight seal around all the building so it is actually the structural fabric of the home that makes it ecologically sound."

The factory-built panels have more than nine inches of wool insulation inside them to keep homes warm in winter and cool in summer, while triple glazed argon-filled windows are installed to trap the warmth from the sun, and the panels are fixed together with precision-engineered joints to ensure an airtight bond.
Everything is precision fitted to eliminate drafts and create an airtight shell. "It is about using the fabric of the building to keep the heat in as much as possible," said Clarke, who added: "From day one it is paying you back.
"You don't have to wait five years or anything." The Future Proof Home was chosen by Ideal Home Show organisers to illustrate how homes could soon "have the opportunity to experience zero energy bills".
Similar homes are already being built in the UK by Trivselhus-by-Esh, a partnership between Swedish firm Trivselhus, which produces the house panels, and the Durham-based Esh Group, which assembles them in Britain.
There are seven homes available now in Newcastle Road, Sunderland, for between £260,000 to £300,000, and in Durham city one home is available for £285,000 at The Grange, Bowburn.
In Cumbria three homes are available now at Wetheral from £625,000, and five will be available at Brampton from £500,000.
Esh chief executive Brian Manning says: "We've been working with Trivselhus since 2009 and we unveiled our first home as part of the joint venture in September 2010 at Bowburn in Durham, and followed with further houses in Sunderland.
"Since then careful checks carried out on energy consumption in these homes have enabled us to show that it is possible to run a Trivselhus-by-Esh home without incurring any energy bills; in other words at zero-energy cost."
Go and see for yourself, at the Ideal Home Show (until April 6).
Tickets available online from £5 to £14, or on the door from £5 to £19.50.