Company overview

Starting out with a team of four people, the idea for CleanTech startup, Vector Homes was born just 18 months ago, with a mission to deliver enough sustainable, smart, and affordable homes for generations to come. With a truly holistic view, the team is driven to optimise the sustainability and functionality of homes across the entire life cycle using recycled materials.

The problem

39% of global greenhouse emissions are derived from construction and operation of buildings, and with the deepening energy crisis, there is a pressing demand to reduce the amount of energy used during the initial building process and energy usage over a lifetime.

Current housing not only uses unsustainable systems and materials – which don’t facilitate technology integration, and require deforestation, quarrying and mining - but with a global undersupply of new housing, demand cannot be met with current building methods and global house prices are soaring.

The solution

Inspired by the urgent demand for low carbon and affordable housing along with materials design experience at the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) based at The University of Manchester, working for well-known aerospace and construction companies, co-founders Liam Britnell, and Nathan Feddy set out to bring to life housing that could be deconstructed and reused rather than demolished, using recycled materials and a simple design methodology.

By enhancing recycled materials (wood, metal and plastics) with nanotechnologies to create unique properties such as durability and fire safety for superior construction materials and modules that are unmatched in their performance, the team at Vector Homes has achieved 50% fewer carbon emissions, less than 1% of waste, high isolation KPIs and 50% reduced costs on traditional building materials.

Through their unique platform system, every house can be extended flexibly within days and is optimised for rapid maintenance, modification, and technology implementation.

Being located in Manchester has been integral to their journey, says Liam Britnell:

“The concentration of Manchester’s advanced materials knowledge and expertise is second to none, and The University of Manchester’s GEIC has provided us with access to graphene and other sustainable materials technologies we would struggle to find elsewhere. With the right talent including manufacturing skills right on our doorstep, we really couldn’t be doing this anywhere else!”

Looking ahead

Through collaborations with other universities across Greater Manchester to test and manufacture their innovative modular housing concept, and by working with community housing groups to try and pass on the savings to communities that need help, Vector Homes has an exciting few years ahead.

“We have an ambition to build 5000 houses per year within 5 years”, continues Liam, “pop the housing bubble and expand and build affordable, durable and low energy homes across the globe.”

MIDAS are exhibiting at JEC World April 25th-27th

Contact us to arrange a meeting with our Advanced Manufacturing team