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The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) document ‘Retrofit Revisit’ is a building performance evaluation project to inform the UK’s approach to improving our housing stock and contribute to our net zero objectives.
CIBSE writes:
…This publication details a building performance evaluation of 10 retrofitted homes, carried out approximately 10 years after the original retrofit works. It aimed to gather lessons on retrofit and on BPE techniques…
… Retrofit Revisit is an important building performance evaluation project to inform the UK’s approach to improving our housing stock and contribute to our net zero objectives. This publication details a building performance evaluation of 10 retrofitted homes, carried out approximately 10 years after the original retrofit works. It aimed to gather lessons on retrofit and on BPE techniques.
On retrofit:
- What has stood the test of time?
- Are there any new lessons on how to carry out retrofit projects?
- Topics of particular interest included (but were not limited to): energy demand, moisture, insulation options (moisture and combustibility), degradation of original solutions (e.g. airtightness).
On BPE techniques:
- What can be learned in a relatively short and non-intrusive manner, from individual BPE techniques or packages of several techniques?
- Where are more specific or detailed BPE techniques useful? How can some BPE techniques being, or newly, developed help?
The sample of 10 homes was as follows:
- Six were part of the 2009 Retrofit for the Future programme. All were considered best practice or exemplar at the time, and employed a whole house ‘deep’ retrofit approach.
- Six were pre-1919 properties.
- Nine were houses, one a flat.
- Some were tenanted from housing associations, others occupied by private owners.
- The insulation strategies and properties varied, with a mix of external, internal, and cavity insulation and of permeable and impermeable materials.
- Heating, hot water and ventilation systems were very varied across the sample.
A two-tiered BPE approach was followed, which is detailed fully within the publication.
