Save Energy at Home

Retrofit Ready

Regular maintenance of your home may provide the perfect opportunity for energy efficiency improvements to be considered (for example when windows need repairing or replacing). Incorporating retrofit measures with the regular maintenance of your home allows for you to be ‘retrofit ready’.

Retrofits can happen in stages, or be carried out all at once. It is best to combine upgrades, extensions or building works with more advanced energy efficiency measures. Installations and upgrade needs depend on the house type and age.

Whole House Planning

When considering retrofit, it is important to see your home as a whole system and not a series of disconnected parts – a lot of retrofit measures work together. This means you should think about how the installation of one measure could impact another.

The ‘whole house’ approach helps you decide which retrofit measures to install and in what order. Planning your measures in isolation rather than as a joined-up process risks unforeseen and possibly undesirable outcomes, as well as higher overall costs

If you have recently installed a new kitchen or bathroom, for example, it would be undesirable to take these out to insulate the walls behind them. Think about how you can incorporate retrofit measures into other home renovation plans - you could save money by doing these at the same time.

This is particularly true for traditional buildings and properties in Conservation Areas as it is important that both historic building fabric, character and appearance of the building and wider area are not unnecessarily compromised. Visit our dedicated retrofit planning pages for more information.

A suitably qualified retrofit coordinator or trained designer, architect or building surveyor can help you in creating a whole house plan and make sure that measures are completed in the correct order to suit you and your home. Visit our 'understanding your property' web pages for more information.