ROUND TABLE REVIEW 29
messaging to consumers on retrofit could be an “extension of the smart meter rollout, rather than “building a brand new structure.”
Looking at the messaging to
homeowners, Jack Ostrovsky said “in my opinion, what we are talking about is just modernising our homes,” but in the context of climate change this amounts to a “vision which might create the mandate for action. David Adams said from his experience with street-by-street retrofit attempts at his former firm Wilmott Dixon, there are all kinds of reasons why some people are just not in a place that they can allow the work to happen. So let’s not handcuff ourselves to a particular route, we need mechanisms; some will do clusters, some will do individual homes.” Ostrovsky emphasised the importance of a lack of trust currently, including of the building industry as well as Government, but this is another ething that can be rebuilt by the right communication.
UNDERFLOOR HEATING
The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is onto its third wave of bids, and has already addressed swathes of homes across the UK, but what are the best practice measures for retrofitting these properties? Our sponsor representative Ashley Cooper of WMS Underoor Heating asked Does underoor heating have a key role to play in the decarbonisation of social housing?” ack Ostrofsky said UFH was now a standard Employers Requirement across the G1 group of London housing associations, and layouts are better.” David Pierpoint of the Retrofit Academy said landlords could decide to “self-fund” it as part of their asset upgrade plans, and that avoiding radiators “would possibly be desirable” where internal wall insulation was the chosen retrofit measure (reducing oor area). David Adams said while UFH may be appropriate to install during social housing during decants, and advocated that “the best way to understand this better, including the costs and operational benefits, would be for WMS to work with a housing association to design a kit and install it in a few properties.” Samantha Organ said she believed retrofitting UFH was likely to be an important component” of decarbonisation of heating, and would mean that many properties would be able to use heating systems such as heat pumps with lower temperatures, “which would be better suited to emitters with larger surfaces.”
EXTERNAL WALL INSULATION The credibility of EWI installations was called into question following the
Green Deal debacle, with many examples of ‘cowboy’ installers both coercing customers and providing poor quality installs that damaged the reputation of retrofit upgrades. Alex Baines however said that thanks to “appropriate programmes under the accreditation schemes,” the risk from installs “was now very, very low.”
He accepted however that making people feel their risk has been mitigated, and that if something goes wrong it will be replaced, because in previous iterations it wasn’t. He also warned that growing awareness of the realistic cost of EWI installation was now “dissuading people, and they are rethinking, and retreating from 30 kW per square metre per annum targets.” Ostrovsky countered the idea of “throwing 10 grand at something, and it’ll be a magic wand, because retrofit is hard work.” Notwithstanding the need for robust solutions generally, the group agreed there needs to be more central investigation on what the practical as well as affordable holistic rather than ‘element-based’ solutions may be.
COORDINATED CONSTRUCTION QUALITY The new whole-house retrofit standard PAS20 requires Retrofit Coordinators to be appointed to oversee the quality of retrofit workmanship and supply chain management on site, as well as designs. ack Ostrovsky of Retrofit London told the delegates that good practice he had witnessed included a “rotating team of trusted Retrofit Coordinators employed by the authority and accessible for private consumers,” but this was unheard of outside of social housing: “if you’re not being driven by grant funding, then PAS2035 is not being used.” Russell Smith said that some construction teams now had the view that “implementing these quality frameworks is really expensive, how can we minimise that cost?” And that “normally that boils down to not sending anyone onsite to check. He gave an alternative example in Oxfordshire where a “fantastic team of coordinators had just instead an entire EWI job be ripped down and reinstalled, and the housing association is over the moon.” David Adams advocated surprise visits to sites by inspectors to ensure a more robust assessment, and Alex Baines concluded that the advisory committee within the HSE which was concerned with occupant safety was having a fundamental impact on the specification of buildings, which could also be felt in the retrofit context. They have the stick and the potential to work out what needs to be done at each level. He added It is a change of culture.”
Becky Lane of retrofit specialist firm Furbnow
Russell Smith of RetrofitWorks
“CHASING EPC TARGETS IS A HUGE DETRIMENT TO THE RETROFIT MARKET”
ALEX BAINES, BRITISH GYPSUM & ISOVER
WWW.HBDONLINE.CO.UK
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