ROUND TABLE DEBATE

FROM AMBITION TO ACTION

The first-ever Specify & Build Round Table gathered architects together to ask the question: what will it take to unlock retrofit at scale?

The UK knows it needs to transform the performance of its existing buildings to meet our net zero targets, but knowing what needs to happen and creating a market to deliver it are two very different things. At our recent retrofit round table, sponsored by Accuroof, Deceuninck and Dimplex, experts from across the sector discussed what needs to change if retrofit is to move into the mainstream.

There is little disagreement about the scale of the retrofit challenge facing the UK. Much of the building stock that will still be occupied in 2050 has already been built, which means improving standards for new buildings can only ever be part of the answer. If the country is serious about reducing carbon emissions from the built environment, millions of existing homes, workplaces, schools and public buildings will need to perform considerably better than they do today. The more difficult question is why, after years of discussion, retrofit is still not taking place at anything approaching the scale required.

The round table debate brought together architects, consultants, manufacturers and trade associations from across the retrofit sector. What followed was a wide-ranging discussion that demonstrated just how difficult it is to isolate one overriding barrier. Cost came up repeatedly, but so did skills, regulation, procurement, consumer understanding and trust. Running through much of the conversation was a broader concern that the UK lacks the long-term certainty needed to turn retrofit from a succession of individual projects into a functioning, sustainable market.

“You’ve got to want to do it,” said one delegate. “Lots of our clients won’t do anything unless they have to.”

That simple point gets to the heart of the problem. For commercial property owners there may be a business case based on energy costs, rental values or asset performance, but those drivers are not universal. For homeowners, the incentive can be weaker still. If there is no regulation forcing action, no compelling financial return and no immediate problem with the property, why spend the money? The discussion repeatedly returned to the need for a clearer roadmap. The 2050 net zero deadline is understood, but the steps needed to reach it are less obvious. One delegate described the problem as having a national target without the roadmap required to get there.

Businesses need confidence. Training people, recruiting staff and building delivery capacity all need investment, and companies are understandably reluctant to make that commitment if government policy may change direction a few years later. The construction industry has seen such schemes appear and disappear before, creating peaks in demand followed by sudden falls.

“You’re not going to get a lot of people trained up to do the work if in five years the targets change and they haven’t got work,” one delegate warned.

MAKE IT WORTH THE INVESTMENT

If certainty is one part of the problem, money is another, particularly when it comes to privately owned homes. The round table heard that deep domestic retrofit can involve expenditure running well into six figures. Even homeowners already planning substantial renovations may struggle to justify such a large financial investment, especially when payback may be difficult to quantify.

Put simply, homeowners have competing demands for their money. A new kitchen, bathroom or extension is visible and easily understood. Insulation, airtightness improvements and other building-performance measures are less obvious, despite potentially making the home more comfortable and cheaper to run.

As one participant pointed out, people naturally gravitate towards spending money on “things that they can actually understand and see”.

Perhaps part of the answer is to stop presenting retrofit as something that has to happen as one enormous standalone project. Every building already has a maintenance cycle. Roofs fail, windows need replacing, boilers reach the end of their lives and owners decide to renovate kitchens, bathrooms and other areas. Those moments create opportunities to improve performance at the same time.

Rather than replacing something prematurely simply because it forms part of a theoretical retrofit programme, the group discussed the value of identifying the right intervention at the right time. An owner might not be able to spend £100,000 in one year, but they may be able to follow a planned sequence of improvements over five, 10 or even 15 years.

That approach could make the financial challenge more manageable, but some form of support will still be required if retrofit is to reach the mass market. Delegates discussed incentives, regulation and different funding mechanisms, with a broad agreement that no single intervention is likely to be enough.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO DELIVER IT

Creating demand without having a workforce capable of meeting it presents another risk, and the skills shortage emerged as one of the strongest concerns around the table. Participants gave examples of installers, contractors and other building professionals encountering retrofit technologies and construction details with which they had relatively little experience. In one particularly stark example, a property was reported to have achieved a worse airtightness result after the retrofit work than before it.

The issue is not simply whether somebody has been trained to install a particular product. Retrofit requires an understanding of how that product interacts with the rest of the building, how junctions and interfaces need to be treated and how ‘minor’ decisions made on site can affect the final performance.

Manufacturers described investing heavily in installer training and technical support, but there was a feeling that greater scrutiny is needed during delivery. One delegate described investigating a housing development where trained installers had fitted heat pumps incorrectly across numerous properties. Nobody involved had deliberately set out to do a bad job, but a collection of site conditions, decisions and mistakes had simply accumulated until the systems no longer worked as intended.

“The bit for me that was missing was the third-party audit,” he said.

Another participant suggested suppliers could have a more active role on site, particularly when contractors are working with unfamiliar products. Rather than materials arriving with instructions and the installer being left to get on with it, technical support at the beginning, followed by checks during and after installation, could prevent relatively small mistakes turning into expensive failures.

This also matters for public confidence: if homeowners hear stories about poorly installed retrofit measures, unexpectedly high bills or buildings developing new problems following work, persuading them to invest becomes harder. Quality, skills, demand and trust are closely connected.

IS PROCUREMENT WORKING AGAINST RETROFIT?

The discussion around social housing raised a different problem: the way large-scale programmes are bought and managed. In some cases, residents can be approached about proposed retrofit work only to wait years for delivery while assessments, funding, procurement and contracts are put in place. By the time work is ready to begin, circumstances may have changed and residents may no longer want to participate.

GIVE PEOPLE A REASON TO CARE

One of the most interesting strands of the conversation concerned the way retrofit is communicated to the people actually living in the buildings. There is a natural tendency within construction to talk about carbon, energy efficiency, EPC ratings and net zero. Those things matter, but may not be what persuades somebody to welcome contractors into their home.

A delegate working in social housing described one resident whose concerns were much more immediate. Her shower regularly lost pressure, she lacked storage space and rats were getting into the property. The retrofit programme created an opportunity to deal with those problems while improving the building itself. Better water storage addressed the shower pressure, changes to the loft provided useful storage and external work helped close the routes through which pests were entering. Once the project was connected to things that mattered to her everyday life, her attitude changed completely.

“If you can find out what is really present and real in people’s lives, and you can make the retrofit address that, then you start to get people being much more excited and enthusiastic.”

That may be one of the most useful lessons for the wider retrofit market. People don’t necessarily need to become passionate about net zero before they can be persuaded to improve their homes. A warmer house in winter, a cooler bedroom during a heatwave, fewer draughts, lower energy demand or simply a more comfortable place to live may be far more compelling reasons to invest. Different parts of the property market will require different approaches. Social landlords have a long-term interest in their stock and may be able to plan investments accordingly. The private rented sector may require stronger regulation to force improvement. Owner-occupiers will need a combination of information, financial support and incentives that make action worthwhile.

What the round table made clear is that Britain does not lack the products capable of improving existing buildings. Nor does it lack knowledge about what better buildings can look like. The harder job is creating the conditions in which that knowledge can be put to work repeatedly, affordably and well.

A stable national direction, better skills, smarter procurement, financial support and greater public confidence all have a part to play. Just as significant may be changing the way retrofit is presented, moving the conversation away from something people are being told they ought to do for 2050 and towards something that can make the buildings they use today better places to live and work. The question is no longer whether the UK needs retrofit, it is how to make enough people want it, make it possible for them to afford it, and build an industry that can deliver it properly when they do.

Next month: Why successful retrofit needs to begin with the whole building, not just a new system.