SOLUTIONS FOR LOW ENERGY DOMESTIC RETROFIT AT SCALE ROUND TABLE REVIEW 19 CHAIR
James Parker, Managing Editor, Architects Datafi le and Housebuilder & Developer
ATTENDEES • Simon Kemp, Growth & Innovation Director, Warmworks • Greg Mathers, Co-Founder, Studio CMA • Brian Berry, CEO, Federation of Master Builders • Naomi Sadler, Director, SEES (Sadler Energy & Environmental Services)
• Laura Morgan-Forster, Innovation Lead, Innovate UK • Andrew Tod, Head of Net Zero, Sureserve • Ben Whiterod, Head of Decarbonisation, Social Infrastructure
• Cypren Edmunds, Project Coordinator, Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance
• Trevor Wilkins, Managing Director, PAH Building & Construction
SPONSORS’ ATTENDEES • Rick Clarke, Product Manager, NIBE Energy Systems
of retrofi t issues, including the concern that in the private rented sector, tenants were not yet protected from the potential adverse consequences to properties’ interiors from low energy upgrades, despite Awaab’s Law having been introduced to mandate tackling damp and mould in social housing. “There are all these condensation issues, where you’re creating these thermal bridges, because you’re not measuring where you’re creating a problem,” said Sadler.
Current practice & driving consumer confi dence Several delegates raised the issue of a lack of consumer demand for low energy retrofi t, citing a range of issues from fi nance to trust, and this needed addressing. Simon Kemp of retrofi t joint venture Warmworks, which has a network of 42 contractors operating in Scotland and is expanding southwards, stressed that demand-led retrofi t there, at least among social tenants for tackling fuel poverty, had been very strong versus more proactive retrofi t. He mentioned that interest-free and low cost loans were being administered by the Energy Saving Trust (which is part of Warmworks), enabling heat pump installations or similar larger upgrades. However, he advocated that in England, something more “demand led,” outside the “able to pay” loans-based scenario was needed to drive demand at scale – “which is community driven, local authority led, proactive.” Sadler drew attention to issues in RDSAP software, and asserted there wasn’t “much of a demand for fuel poverty-based retrofi t until MEES (the Minimum Energy Effi ciency Standard) comes in.” Simon Kemp pushed back on this, saying 15% of people in England were living in fuel poor homes, but accepted that “if the measure was the same as it was in Scotland, it would be greater, because you’ve got this somewhat arbitrary SAP level attached to fuel poverty (under £36,000 household income for the Home Energy Grant eligibility).” Sadler said “a lot of people are in the private rented sector, and until MEES is a mandatory requirement, they are waiting until they “suddenly need to deal with this; there’s no driver, no push.” She suggested using “in-use readings” on performance; “it doesn’t form part of EPC, but it should.”
Speaking as a contractor, Trevor Wilkins expressed concern about the current lack of a “fabric fi rst approach,” saying “I think homeowners could be very disappointed in the short term.” Consumer understanding of renewables was also an issue: “Unless you use batteries correctly, drawing input overnight, I think people will be inundated with rather large bills over and above what their gas bill was, and you’ll instantly get that negative impact, and that will spread very quickly amongst the public.” He added: “I think people don’t realise electricity is currently fi ve times the cost of gas.” He echoed Laura Morgan-Forster’s comments from Innovate UK, saying consumer education was now imperative, and without this plus good quality installation, retrofi t targets were “pie in the sky.” It “has to not be another Government scheme that falls off the tracks.”
Brian Berry of the Federation of Master Builders said that endless political shifts at the Ministry of Housing had caused sustained uncertainty, plus failed schemes like the Green Deal and Green Homes Grant. He said that FMB members’ focus was that “we need to go back to basics,” and added that they “really wanted to see the results of the EPC consultations.” He supported the theory proposed of every home having an “energy passport” enabling homeowners to “understand the performance of their home and the [retrofi t] measures that best suit the needs of that home.” Naomi Sadler gave the forthright view that the Government “rushed out the Warm Homes Plan” when they cancelled ECO4, to avoid “mass unemployment; we’ve basically trained all these people that are going to leave the industry, and we’re not going to have anyone to do the assessments.” She added: “I think it needs to be mandatory that every house assessed is by a competent person,” which thereby “creates a plan for that house of all the work that needs to be done, including condensation risks, and the ventilation assessment.”
Sadler said this needed to be done before a heat pump was considered, and while she endorsed the technology, they were being “oversized and undersized,” and further criticised RDSAP for “not assessing the things it needs to assess,” again potentially resulting in tenants in the private rented sector being on the receiving end of poorly-performing retrofi ts.
She also said the EPC consultation was a “massive missed opportunity” to drive retrofi t in the private rented sector by making retrofi t “automatically trigger a requirement for a new EPC, and instead allowing existing EPC C properties to essentially be immune from upgrades for 10 years.” She added: “There’s nothing to make the landlord improve that house, regardless of how poor the quality or the cost to the resident.” Simon Kemp said, candidly: “Get a friendly assessor, and they’ll get you a C.”
The delegates were keen to stress the importance of focusing on consumer preferences in retrofi t decisions, including aesthetics as well as functionality. Sadler agreed that consumer education in understanding the benefi ts of retrofi t measures was key. Anna Scothern warned that the consumer side was challenging as “demand remains inconsistent, due to confusion about schemes and eligibility, lack of trusted intermediaries, perceived disruption and complexity, and uncertainty about return on investment.” She said that in order to sustain demand at scale, messaging “must be simplifi ed and consistent, and trusted sector bodies should be leveraged as confi dence anchors.”
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