Building Supply Chain for Mass Refurbishment of Houses: Mass Implementation -Whole house solutions report (WP3 D3)

Abstract:

This project looked at designing a supply chain solution to improve the energy efficiency of the vast majority of the 26 million UK homes which will still be in use by 2050.It looked to identify ways in which the refurbishment and retrofitting of existing residential properties can be accelerated by industrialising the processes of design, supply and implementation, while stimulating demand from householders by exploiting additional opportunities that come with extensive building refurbishment.The project developed a top-to-bottom process, using a method of analysing the most cost-effective package of measures suitable for a particular property, through to how these will be installed with the minimum disruption to the householder. This includes identifying the skills required of the people on the ground as well as the optimum material distribution networks to supply them with exactly what is required and when.<br /><br />Work Package 3 covers developing retrofit solutions to improve thermal performance of our national housing stock.<br /><br />This deliverable is number 3b of 7 in Work Package 3. It builds on the research carried out for the Technical Solutions Matrix (D3.3a). Using the Evaluation Matrices developed previously as a decision guide, this report tackles the challenge of developing generic whole house solutions for a set of representative house types. A preliminary analysis of the impact of the defined retrofit interventions is included in this deliverable.<br /><br />Due to the range of house types available, we have selected four types that are distinctly different from each other in order to work through the range of unique constraints posed by each type. The four types are as follows:<ol><li>Three bed semi detached house</li><li>Mid-rise block of flats</li><li>High-rise tower block</li><li>Hard to Treat property</li></ol>Each of these types was analysed in terms of the following framework:<ol><li>Existing condition - what might you find in a property of this type&#063;</li><li>Issues and Risks - what are the challenges and unknowns&#063;</li><li>Improvement Options - what can you do to make the property more thermally efficient&#063;</li><li>Innovation Options - solutions that are not in the mainstream yet but have the potential to solve difficult problems at the critical building junctions.</li></ol>These take on board the findings from a Retrofit Innovations workshop that was held as part of this workpackage. Costing exercises were also carried out on the most dominant type using current costing methodology. The exercise showed that the cost for a whole house retrofit is quite high and that there is a lot of potential for optimising the process(of the costing itself as well as the retrofit activity) in order to bring down the costs for the future supply chain. <br /><br />The report also discusses the implications of the smart meter rollout on any national retrofit activity. <br /><br />Please note this report was produced in 2011/2012 and its contents may be out of date.

Publication Year:

2013

Publisher:

ETI

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5286/ukerc.edc.000226

Author(s):

Ramos, M.