16 Round Table Review: Exploring Solutions for Decarbonising Social Housing
COMMON GOALS Delegates agreed that there should be more policy clarity across Government, electricity prices needed to come down, and stop-start wave funding was unhelpful
asset issue, with associated assets you need to manage diff erently.” T ompson proposed the notion that lower carbon was seen by residents as
“a nice to have, but not the core driver.” Kyae Lee of Legal & General said that the residents of a Passivhaus scheme reported in a Post Occupancy Evaluation “without fail” that their bills were “so much cheaper,” and this was “a concern particularly to the younger residents.”
THE UNDERFLOOR OPTION Mark Owen of WMS Underfl oor Heating explained why he believed underfl oor heating has considerable potential for decarbonising social housing, such as paired with heat pumps for example, for “lower-cost and lower-maintenance heating.” However, with accessing housing associations being a challenge, he asked what would it take for the technology to become the ‘default option’ in new social homes (such as via policy-based incentives and supply-chain innovation). Delegates off ered some fairly stark learnings for UFH providers, that there
was reticence in the social housing sector around maintenance in particular, that was preventing takeup. Ruth Dent said: “We don’t know how to maintain it, it comes back to skills.” She suggested that the approach to training in-house teams around heat pumps that emerged “around fi ve years ago, working with suppliers to put them through courses” needed to happen with underfl oor heating. Otherwise, said Dent, it’s a case of “not knowing what it means for the future in terms of our repairs and maintenance.” Paul Norman said that trade off s on capex were driving decisions on new
build, but also “whether it was cheaper to maintain over a 30 year period.” Owen assured the group that “the price had come down drastically over the past 10 years,” and there was “very little maintenance required for underfl oor heating.” Alison Skillen said that manufacturers “needed to look at the cost caps set by Government” for retrofi t, and “whether it fi ts inside those sensibly.” She warned that if this wasn’t done, people like Clarion and Peabody would have to increase their funding contribution: “Can they recover that cost?” Richard Ellis from Peabody off ered a view that in terms of overheating issues
in new builds, the cooling potential of underfl oor heating systems to run as “reverse chillers“ to cool properties down needed exploring. “T is was also a good selling point around heat pumps,” which have an underused cooling role too, he said.
MAKING A RECOVERY Mira Showers recently acquired waste water heat recovery specialist Recoup, which gives the company a key weapon in the decarbonisation space. WWHR is a highly eff ective, straightforward means of recovering heat from showers to heat incoming cold water, saving carbon and relieving pressure on boilers and heat pumps. Ben Smith wanted to know if and how housing providers ensure that water and energy effi ciency are considered together during retrofi t projects, particularly as arguably introducing such measures on a retrofi t basis requires more holistic thinking to get right. He explained that with the water aspect and the energy recovery aspects of
the company’s off er currently sitting in separate parts of the overall ecosystem, “they appear on frameworks at diff erent points, and they’re purchased by diff erent people within groups.” Smith wondered whether there were potential future solutions to bring them together, “so we can tell a complete story.” Paul Norman off ered the view that as a supplier they’d need to look at “in two
parts – explain very simply how it will work in practice, how it will gain SAP points toward EPC C; how much does it cost and what the benefi t is.” But the second part was the aff ordability for customers, but “it’s how you join those two bits together.” Steven Tracy said that waste water heat recovery should be “baked into the
Future Homes Standard, so it becomes business as usual.” Elaine Middleton said that social housing organisations have “multiple problem statements and pain points and regulatory requirements to hit,” so needed suppliers to show “how doing things together would solve those multiple problems. We’re really busy, so you really need to spell it out.” Alison Skillen said that while hot water heating gets “massively
underestimated in terms of its carbon,” there were obstacles to choosing non- standard solutions for retrofi ts. “We are in danger because we’re so reliant on those [frameworks] that we’ve ended up with cookie cutter solutions.” She added that she “would like to see some of the framework providers thinking a little bit more creatively around how they adapt their solutions,” but also cited a provider giving a one-line specifi cation – ‘supplier to provide’ – “I remarked that was quite a high risk strategy!” Before asking his own sponsor question, Graham Collie of LHC Procurement
Group said regulations “needed to keep up” with innovative ideas. However, he said the Procurement Act coming into force this year has meant the
Housing Management & Maintenance December/January 2026
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