Fitting our homes out for the future

The government-backed Retrofit for the Future programme will see around 90 social housing units across the UK retrofitted with new, innovative, technologies, demonstrating how homes can be made more energy efficient while reducing their CO2 emissions.

Wates Living Space is currently working in partnership with Raven Housing Trust to deliver a ‘Retrofit for the Future’ project in Redhill, Surrey, funded by the Technology Strategy Board.

Paul Davies, sustainable technologies manager for Wates Living Space, said: “Whilst we have, as an industry, been focusing on increasing energy efficiency standards applicable to new housing, currently little is being done to improve the efficiency of the 26 million existing homes we have. These projects will test how some of the new techniques and technologies can be applied to the homes we currently use.

“We need to find a way to retrofit these new technologies into older homes to ensure we have an opportunity to significantly reducing the UK’s carbon footprint.”

Wates will work with Raven Housing Trust to install a ground source heat pump, PV, mechanical ventilation heat recovery, solar thermal system and a range of energy efficiency measures to a 1930s property in Redhill, with the aim of significantly improving upon the efficiency of the residents’ existing heating system, saving hundreds of pounds on household bills every year.

David Bott, director of innovation programmes for the Technology Strategy Board, explained: "At least 60 per cent of the houses UK residents will live in by 2050 have already been built; so it is critical that we look at ways to dramatically improve the environmental performance and impact of our existing housing stock.

“Retrofit for the Future provides the testbed we need to ensure the implementation of long-term solutions. This initiative has seen the retrofit market come together, with social landlords, local councils, architects and other specialist suppliers, developing a range of high performance and cost effective prototype solutions."

All retrofit projects will act as a demonstrator house which will be monitored by the Energy Saving Trust for a minimum of two years and assessed for potential large scale implementation in the UK’s existing social housing stock.

The data collected from each of the retrofitted houses, including internal and external temperature, humidity and CO2 levels, will be assimilated and available to researchers, social landlords and energy companies to ensure that the most cost-effective technologies are employed in future retrofits.
Davies added: “The Retrofit for the Future programme will have massive implications for the future of social and private housing it’s very exciting time to be involved”