Let there be light - by Rupert Bates

The Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry have lived in Boughton House, a Northamptonshire pile known as ‘The English Versailles,' for nearly 500 years. My family lived in a low carbon semi on the edge of a Northamptonshire housing estate for 24 hours. The two worlds might yet collide.

Huge new development planned for the east of Kettering, including land owned by the present Duke of Buccleuch, could provide the spark for the volume production of energy efficient new homes, driven by the fundamentals of daylight and fresh air.

Kettering Borough Council has granted outline permission for 5,500 new homes east of Kettering. The scheme includes new schools, offices and transport improvements as part of a £160 million local contributions package - a presumption in favour of sustainable development long before the National Planning Policy Framework reared its controversial draft.

The Council wants the developer, a joint venture between Bee Bee Developments and Buccleuch Property, to consider the viability of building CarbonLight homes, pioneered a few miles away by VELUX.

"The CarbonLight model looks like a real solution in meeting both our local sustainable development and housing needs," said David Cook, chief executive of Kettering Borough Council.

My road to zero carbon was not lined by wood nymphs in hard hats and if I was an eco superhero, I was not wearing green underpants outside my trousers.

The first thing you notice on the pair of semi-detached properties, apart from the shingle cladding, is the windows; lots of them and hardly surprising given VELUX is the biggest name in roof windows.

The two homes are on land next to a traditional Bovis estate in Rothwell, near Kettering. The project is nothing to do with Bovis. But Bovis residents are intrigued by the new neighbours and anxious to peak over the fence for a glimpse of the future.

However we were clearly not the ‘celebrity' family the locals might have been expecting to test-drive this fascinating eco-housing experiment.

CarbonLight, designed by HTA Architects, is an ‘Active House' principle, championing ‘liveability and well-being' as well as energy efficiency, looking to provide a mass market housing solution.

"The CarbonLight homes are largely energy self-sufficient, using solar heating in combination with air-to-water heat pumps for hot water and space heating and natural ventilation for cooling the homes," said Paul Hicks, Carbonlight's design and construction coordinator.

The four-bedroom, 150 square metre home we stayed in is valued between £275,000 and £300,000. In March two families will move into the houses rent-free for a year to monitor the carbon emissions, water use and air quality, before the properties are sold on the open market.

The homes should reduce on-site carbon emissions by 70 per cent with the other 30 per cent offset by making energy efficient improvements to council homes in the borough to ensure the homes are carbon neutral.

There are solar collectors, rather than panels, on the roof and a large rainwater harvesting tank in the garden. The climate control system opens and closes windows, blinds and shutters automatically when the weather changes.

The array of large windows means plenty of natural daylight to save on electricity, with fuel bills expected to be at least 70 per cent less than an average similar sized new home.

Before long my five-year-old, with enough energy to power 5,500 new homes east of Kettering, was playing with the WindowMaster system and calling himself a Jedi WindowMaster.

The building management system monitors temperature and ventilation levels in every room. It also measures solar energy and heating and water consumption.

The open plan design, with a triple height atrium, produces a natural ‘stack' ventilation effect, allowing fresh air to move in and replace stale, overheated air.

Our mild winter sleepover saw the house temperature hover around a comfortable 20 degrees, at least when Freddie wasn't being the Jedi WindowMaster with the remote control. A wood burning stove in the living room had ‘Plan B' written all over the log basket.

Practical drawbacks were the need to dance under the shower to get wet and enough time to sink a bottle of wine while waiting for the kids' bath - hot water courtesy of the solar system - to run, while at supper the dining area lights kept going out. Romantic mood lighting is one thing; pitch darkness another, with the lights responding to body movement.

It clearly makes commercial sense for VELUX, a Danish company, to ensure tomorrow's homes incorporate plenty of their products, but it has also avoided slapping on eco bling renewable energy systems to score green brownie points that do not always add up.

VELUX believes CarbonLight will conform to level 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes and the houses are part of VELUX's Model Home 2020 initiative - based on the EU's energy policy for member states to reduce total energy consumption and CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, with 20 per cent of energy consumption from renewable sources. Other Model Home houses have been built in Denmark, Germany, France and Austria.

"VELUX believes the concept of CarbonLight, rather than the specific architecture or build solution, provides the basis for a viable alternative model for future zero carbon homes. It can be adapted affordably by volume housebuilders to suit their sustainable agenda and customer expectations," said Hicks.