Posted 21.07.14
Experts in the sustainability and building sector gathered at the National Retrofitting Conference on 4th June.
The speakers brought together some of the sector's most innovative projects, technologies and successful schemes on retrofitting. Presentations were supplemented by workshops to trigger discussion and get an insight into current issues and approaches.
Andrew Eagles, Managing Director at Sustainable Homes, opened the event by highlighting the state of the play in the retrofit and existing homes 2014.
Rick Holland, Lead Technologist at Technology Strategy Board, presented the findings from the £17 million Retrofit for the Future project:
By deliberately choosing some of the toughest sites, the study showed how an 80% reduction in energy consumption and carbon emissions can be achieved - and this was using 2010 technology.
What is perhaps underplayed, and sometimes gets lost in the business case, is the prize of improving residents' comfort and ability to manage their monthly bills.
In other words, investing in retrofit is a real quality of life issue, the likes of which very much align with many housing associations social objectives.
The potential benefits from whole-house retrofits are tremendous. Rick Holland presented a useful illustration highlighting these benefits. However, in the past few decades, the uptake of deep retrofit programmes has been slow.
The retrofit community has largely based their support for retrofitting on the benefits in terms of saving energy, such as the "Pay as you save model". Yet numerous research projects show that, in addition to energy savings, there are numerous other social benefits including:
We are working with other organisations to highlight these other advantages. This may help in the call for uptake of retrofit.
Use this link to read a fuller report from the conference.
