Put simply retrofit is the renovation of a home to improve its energy efficiency, reduce fuel fuels, improve comfort and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Typically this could include:
- Upgrading the building fabric: adding insulation to the walls, roofs and floors, new windows and doors
- Reducing drafts and improving ventilation: It is important to distinguish between the two of these, drafts lead to unwanted and uncontrolled heat loss, controlled ventilation is necessary to get rid of stale air and provide fresh air.
- Upgrading the heating system to improve efficiency
- And finally adding renewable technologies to generate energy at home, for example solar panels.
A retrofit can be completed in a number of ways, a step by step approach done over a number of years and stages, but with an overall retrofit strategy in place, or a whole house deep retrofit completed all in one go.
There is a lean, mean, green hierarchy of retrofit that we generally, but not always follow. This is to:
- First reduce heat loss by improving the building fabric and reducing drafts
- Then upgrade/install more efficient heating systems
- Finally to add renewable technologies.
Whether you are thinking about a retrofit project and don’t know where to start or need help working out a detailed strategy for your project we can help, click here to get in touch
