Why residential eco-retrofits are failing in the UK

Retrofit projects to make homes more energy efficient are failing, especially when their design is dictated only by financial values, according to the Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance (STBA).

It is backing a “Responsible Retrofit” program incorporating health and heritage values and not just financial ones, in order to encourage a new attitude to giving old homes makeovers.

About 25 million British homes were built before 1990 and are in need of retrofits to bring them at least up to modern standards for energy efficiency. And it is generally considered more economic to retrofit the whole house at one go, as I argue in my book the Earthscan Expert Guide to Sustainable Home Refurbishment.

Yet there are many unintended consequences of existing retrofit programs, especially piecemeal ones. They may lead to unhealthy indoor environments, condensation and mould, fabric decay and other problems that affect occupants.

Often programs fail to meet their targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy use, and in some cases even result in an increase in both of these.

Part of the problem is that there is often not a whole house/building approach when retrofit measures are applied. But even when there is a whole building approach similar consequences can ensue. This is because there are different ideas of what is involved in a whole building retrofit. So what are these different ideas?

Responsible retrofits

An earlier report from the STBA called Responsible Retrofit of Traditional Buildings found that most of the problems that occur with retrofits are at the interfaces between elements, technologies for building processes, or through the interactions between the measures taken, people, and the buildings they occupy, many of which are not fully understood.

This is not just a technical issue. Buildings, and people, behave differently and interact differently depending upon the social, economic and environmental context in which they find themselves.

All of these aspects need to be taken account of. The aim of retrofits should be to look for multiple wins: such as how to improve occupant health, the long-term condition of the building fabric, and make it easy to live in.

To achieve this they need to examine the way thermal energy is conducted through the building and where moisture travels and how it is managed, throughout the year-round weather conditions and patterns of occupancy. This is especially true where different materials meet each other.

When retrofits do fail, it’s not “just because we do not sufficiently understand traditional buildings, or have the wrong approach or the wrong standards or skills”, the STBA says.

“It is because we have an economic and political system which is driving misallocation of finance, land and housing, depletion of natural resources and pollution.”

This is really the reason why The Green Deal programme failed so abysmally, as I have shown before – and why the German equivalent has succeeded.

What values should be incorporated then? The STBA says we need to account for heritage, well-being, community, biodiversity and health – values which, for most people, give meaning to their world more than money does.

But the organisation is pessimistic this can happen without an ethical approach being taken to the allocation of finances for retrofitting. It believes that this demands that the economy and society should “have sustainability and culture at their heart”.

That is why it is issuing a call to rethink the whole approach. It argues:

“The process of retrofit, if carried out correctly, has great potential not only to repair the environment but also to improve people’s lives. Unless we start with the Whole House Advanced/Responsible Retrofit position our efforts will lead to unintended consequences and may be counterproductive even in the most narrowly measured terms.”

To this end the STBA has launched a Responsible Retrofit website, which is full of resources, one of the most useful of which is the Guidance Wheel.

This interactive tool represents over 50 measures that can be used in the refurbishing of the buildings and allows you to explore their interrelationships including the user’s interest, motivation and knowledge about the building:

Since its launch, it has been taken up by several other organisations, including the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and Construction Excellence Wales.

But until it is mainstreamed into the general drive to upgrade the performance of all older buildings, rather than just heritage ones, then piecemeal retrofitting, driven by economics, will prevail in the marketplace, and with it the risk of failure to deliver the desired outcomes.

David Thorpe is the author of:

• Earthscan Expert Guide to Sustainable Home Refurbishment 
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Energy Management in Buildings
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Energy Management in Industry 
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Solar Technology
• The One Planet Life
• Best Practices and Case Studies for Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvement (with Oung, K. and Fawkes, S., UNEP)
• A London Conversation: Business Briefing on using Green Bonds for energy efficiency in buildings

An off-site pre-fab approach to Passivhaus 'deep retrofit'

A new approach to retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency to a high standard has been deemed so successful that a British company is opening a new factory for offsite fabrication of a retrofit system that will be then taken on to the site for installation.

These kits involve a wrap-around solution for an existing building that also includes ventilation to ensure good air quality and, because it uses off-site construction, the upgrade process can take as little as three weeks and means that the occupants do not have to move out during the upgrade.

The company, Beattie Passive Retrofit, has secured patents in 57 countries for its innovative solution, which is called TCosy and been developed with funding from Innovate UK, that channels public financial support to private sector R&D to foster low carbon innovation.

The company’s approach, founded on the stringent and verifiable Passivhaus energy performance standard, also involves using locally-trained labour. Passivhaus standard is hard to achieve because it demands that the contractors achieve a high level of airtightness. However, due to the simple system and factory construction much of the uncertainty is taken out of achieving this. The standard can attain an 85% reduction, or £1000 per year, in heating fuel costs for the average house.

Residents of 6 flats in a 3-storey, apartment block owned by Solihull Community Council near Birmingham, England are amongst the first to benefit from the system, following a three-year collaborative R&D project between Encraft, a low-carbon buildings engineering consultancy, Coventry University and a local social enterprise called Jericho Foundation who trained people facing significant personal or occupational barriers to build the system.

Beattie's CEO Ron Beattie, who founded the company in 2008, said: "We have designed the retrofit process to be as simple and efficient for all parties involved. Having tested the processes we've proved we can deliver energy savings over the life of a building."

Ron Beattie provides an overview of the innovative Beattie Passive Build System and Retrofit System - The TCosy – filmed at the 2015 Passivhaus conference.

Gareth Cavill, Beattie Passive's lead architect, said that "the process begins by producing the architectural drawings in house. The information goes to the factory where the frames  are manufactured and then taken to the site where they are erected. We source the windows and doors from one of our supply partners in Europe due to their advanced quality and cost advantages."

He added that the insulation used within the timber frames consists of expanded polystyrene eco-beads.

Isabel Beattie, Head of Strategy and Development stated that "The estimated price for a retrofit is £550 per square meter of floor area including the frame, windows and doors," she said. "This makes a three-bedroom detached house retrofit typically cost £45,000. Our clients are expected to be social housing providers, developers and self builders."

The approach is similar to that offered by the Investor Confidence Project, in providing a guaranteed rate of return and financial package to investors, the key being the simplicity and certainty guaranteed to the investor and to the housing provider of the whole offer.

Ron Beattie believes this approach will solve a key problem facing what is called 'deep retrofit' agendas – financing their comparatively large upfront cost. "Once we can guarantee energy savings, we believe that pension funds and other long-term investors will be prepared to lend over 30 years, with a return after that. And we will have pulled people out of fuel poverty," he said.

"We showed estate agents in Birmingham what we’re doing and their studies suggest a £65,000 uplift in value on a £120,000 property, because you are putting a new building over the top of the old one. If redecorated, with a new kitchen and bathroom, you’re looking at a completely new house." This raises the possibility of generating a profit from deep retrofitting.

Isabel observed that they were already talking to some pension companies about investing in retrofits for future roll-out at scale. "We estimate that savings generated by the retrofit of on average 85% of heating requirements would help pay back the investment within 30 years. With this type of programme the tenants generally pay one fee that includes rent and energy, and it is from this income that the housing provider would pay back the investor. The fee would be reduced slightly for the tenant compared to the non-retrofitted rent, and they will also have warmer, healthier home."

Solihull homes before cladding.

"We have new sales staff and an architect. Work is coming in and growth is going to be very fast," added Ron optimistically. "We are due to start manufacturing in the factory soon and we’ve got seven or eight homes booked in, ready to go. They range from private client, multi-million pound houses to standard affordable homes for Hertfordshire Council – different ends of the market, but the same process."

To fill the demand the company will soon open a factory on the Scottow Enterprise Park, formerly RAF Coltishall. With 57 patents secured abroad, it is clearly confident that expansion on a large scale is possible one small proofs of concept are installed. With 20 million homes in the UK alone needing a low-energy retrofit, the market is clearly huge.

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David Thorpe is the author of:

• Best Practices and Case Studies for Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvement(with Oung, K. and Fawkes, S. UNEP, 2016)
• A London Conversation: Business Briefing on Green Bonds(Fifth Estate, 2015)
• The One Planet Life(Introduction: Jane Davidson. Routledge, 2015)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Energy Management in Buildings(Earthscan, 2013)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Energy Management in Industry(Earthscan, 2013)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Solar Technology(Earthscan, 2011)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Sustainable Home Refurbishment (Earthscan, 2010)

We need a definition of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings

A selection of low energy building types in Europe.

Most of the buildings around now will still be here in 2050, so the real challenge is not only making new buildings energy efficient but eco-renovating the old ones.

A new analysis of different pathways to achieving this goal has identified the most cost-effective ones, depending upon the existing housing stock. Although the study is focus on the different member states of the European Union, it could be applicable elsewhere that buildings and climate are similar, since the range of both within Europe is large.

The message is that while a strengthening of regulatory measures is essential, what is really crucial is a much stronger focus on compliance with regulations.

In most cases nobody ever bothers to check whether building regulations have been complied with, let alone conducts post-occupancy evaluations to see whether the expected performance is achieved.

The study uncovers a huge lack of data regarding renovation activities and the energy performance of buildings and calls for a building data observatory, in particular for monitoring the impact of policies.

It finds that the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPDB) has not performed as well as expected, even in the recast version.

The EPDB requires that from 2019 onwards all new buildings occupied and owned by public authorities in Europe are nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEBs) and that by the end of 2020 all new buildings must be nZEBs.

But because there is a wide variety in building culture (including ownership) and climate throughout Europe the Directive doesn't prescribe a uniform approach. Instead it asks member states to draw up specific national roadmaps that reflect their national, regional or local conditions.

Chart of European building stock by country and age:



It's necessary to deeply renovate the existing building stock to highly ambitious levels, in line with long-term energy policy and climate mitigation targets.

But the problem is that the Directive does not contain a clear definition of nZEB renovation.

This study, Laying down the pathways to nearly Zero-Energy Buildings, A toolkit for policy makers, undertaken by ENTRANZE (Policies to Enforce the Transition to nearly Zero-Energy Buildings in the EU-28), attempts to find policies to fill this gap.

According to the ENTRANZE model results for EU-28, the current policy framework could lead to savings of about 20%-23% of final energy demand from 2008-2030. In contrast, more ambitious policies, as developed during this project in extensive discussions with policy makers, would lead to savings of 29-31% in final energy demand.

However, this still does not represent the maximum of achievable effort and policy innovation. Almost half of the final energy demand for heating and hot water is covered by natural gas in 2008.

The research shows that an ambitious policy package could reduce natural gas demand in 2030 by almost 36-45%, potentially halving energy dependency on gas in the building stock by 2030.

The study says that the EPBD needs to make clear that cost-effectiveness must stand as the absolute minimum requirement for existing relations in building codes, and that current activities to improve high quality renovation, that would result in substantial savings, have to be significantly increased to have a lasting impact.

"While nZEB's energy performance level should be cost effective they still have to be more ambitious than cost optimal energy performance levels," the report says.

Chart of cost-optimal building eco-refurbishment in Europe:



It argues that European member states must be challenged to close the gap between the requirements of nZEB targets and the cost of the less stringent levels of current building codes. It should then gradually increase the requirements of the targets for existing buildings and for this a clear definition of "deep renovation" or nZEB is required.

There is also some confusion with standardisation and terminology.

Single family houses show the most potential for the use of renewable energy technologies is more effective in Mediterranean climates (characterised by higher solar radiation). A similar trend applies to office buildings, but with fewer differences between the South and North of Europe because of the higher electricity consumption for auxiliary systems and mechanical ventilation.

Net primary energy saving percentages for cost-optimal and nZEB targets are closer together in residential buildings than in office and school buildings. Multi-family dwellings show lower energy saving potential compared to single houses, due to geometric limits, such as the lower available roof area for solar systems.

Three tools

Part of the problem that the study attempts to tackle is the high initial cost of a deep renovation compared to the energy saving over 30 years. The study uses three tools to analyse this:

• The Data Tool: an in-depth description of the characteristics of buildings and related energy systems in the EU-28 and Serbia.
• The Cost Tool: ia powerful, flexible instrument to analyse the impact of a large number of renovation packages for specific building types in terms of costs and primary energy demand.
• The Online Scenario Tool: the results of alternative scenarios for the development of the building stock and its energy demand in the EU-28 (+ Serbia) up to 2030.

It concludes that while measures required to achieve nZEB-levels may not be cost-effective today, by 2020 they could be. this is especially true of using renewable energy systems for heating and cooling.

Perhaps its most valuable contribution is a country-by-country analysis and set of recommendations. For instance for France it says that:

"Despite five updates of building codes since 1974 for new construction and the fact that the last building code implemented (RT2012) is one of the most stringent in EU29, the specific energy consumption per m² and per heating degree days in buildings in France is still significantly higher than in other EU countries."

The study builds on an earlier one on the definition of nZEBs, concluded in 2011, which just goes to show how regrettably slow movement is on this topic.

This study found that:

"typically, low-energy buildings will encompass a high level of insulation, very energy efficient windows, a high level of air tightness and natural/ mechanical ventilation with very efficient heat recovery to reduceheating/cooling needs.

"Passive solar building design may boost their energy performance to very high levels by enabling the building to collect solar heat in winter and reject solar heat in summer and/or by integrating active solar technologies (such as solar collectors for domestic hot water and space heatingor PV-panels for electricity generation).

"In addition, other energy/resource saving measures may also be utilized, e.g. on-site wind turbines to produce electricity or rainwater collecting systems."

Yet, it found that in 2011, more than half of the Member States did not have an officially recognised definition for low or zero energy buildings.

Four years later the situation is not much better.

David Thorpe is the author of 

• Sustainable Home Refurbishment: The Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency, and
• Energy Management in Buildings: The Earthscan Expert Guide

This is the way to eliminate fuel poverty

Thousands of lives could be saved by giving energy bill rebates to the fuel poor that are conditional on having smart meters, advice, energy audits and eco-refits.

A recent report by Professor John Hills of the London School of Economics for the Government estimated that at least 2,700 people die every winter because they can’t afford their soaring heating bills.

This is more than the number who die on the roads each year.

Save the Children UK estimates that low-income families may pay up to £250 a year more for energy.

This is often because they do not pay by direct debit and are on pre-payment meters (although not all PPM customers are fuel poor).

But successive governments have found it hard to deal with the problem, and increased fuel prices have only served to make it worse.

Government policies to create a low carbon future are also adding around 8% to average energy bills, although in the future this means the bills won't be so vulnerable to fossil fuel price rises.

The only real solution to the problem is to help low-income householders use less energy and to improve the energy performance of their housing.

There has been no shortage of support for this idea already. Schemes include:

• The Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC, 2002–2008), the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT, 2008–2012) and the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) due next year to replace it. Half of CERT's budget (£1.8 billion) was targeted at households in receipt of means-tested benefits or disability-related benefits or where the householder is aged 70 or over
• Publicly funded schemes like Warm Front in England, and related programmes in the devolved administrations, which cost £470 million in 2009/2010
• The Decent Homes refurbishment scheme for social housing in England (and similar schemes in the devolved administrations). According to the DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government) £4 billion was spent on heating and insulation improvements between 2000-2008, plus £2 billion between 2008/2009 and 2010/11)
• The pilot Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP), running until December 2012 and costing £350 million, which is targeted at deprived areas and the hardest to treat housing.

This is about £1.77bn a year. But they have yet to prove that they provide effective value for money.

In fact the UK is further from eliminating fuel poverty in vulnerable households than ever.

For example, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, when it examined the Warm Front in 2009, found it to be poorly targeted despite using means-tested benefits, since nearly 75% of households entitled to a grant are unlikely to be in fuel poverty, yet only 35% of all those households likely to be in fuel poverty are eligible for it, partly because it only applied to private housing.

The scheme did not prioritise those with the most energy-inefficient accommodation, especially in rural areas.

How to eliminate fuel poverty

The first problem is targeting the appropriate households.

The Government is hoping to use two new ‘data frameworks’ – the Home Energy Efficiency Database (HEED) run by the Energy Saving Trust, and the National Energy Efficiency Data (NEED) framework, which is being developed by DECC.

But there are severe problems with this: HEED does not include EPC ratings from England and Wales, and anyway EPC ratings will be available only for properties that have been put up for sale, missing out most people, especially pensioners, who do not move.

Therefore much greater attention needs to be paid to gathering and matching information.

It should not be beyond the bounds of the technically possible that much of this work can be done automatically, cross-checking with data from Local Authorities, energy utilities and charities.

After all, it's the sort of thing which the marketing departments of companies like Tesco do all the time.

But why not actually harness the power of crowd sourcing and encourage the fuel poor themselves to come forward by rewarding them to do so with a reduction and a rebate on their bills?

They should be able to volunteer through a central helpline run by the Energy Saving Trust and publicised by the energy companies themselves, as part of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), as well through local authorities and charities.

A condition for the receipt of rebates should then be that households are given, through the ECO, an energy audit, and a complete whole house eco-refit based on this audit, followed by training on how to use any equipment that has been installed.

The refurbishment should be done on a whole-home basis to achieve the maximum benefit.

Immediately on coming forward, all these households should also be automatically given smart meters.

When these are installed, the occupants should be visited and show how to use them, and given personal advice on how to achieve even greater reductions in energy bills through broader energy-saving behaviours.

This would get them off pre-payment tariffs straight away, which would reduce their costs.

It would encourage them to set and aim at specific energy usage or bill totals within a week or a month, so that they gain greater awareness and control over their energy use and budgets.

This could reduce their bills by at least 10%.

But this won't reach every home. Far more fuel poor households are in the private rented sector than are owner-occupiers.

These homes are more likely to be in a poor state.

The 2011 Energy Act will force landlords to improve the energy efficiency performance of their stock from the year 2015, using measures for which there is funding available through the Green Deal or the ECO, if a review, to be held in 2014, reveals that they have not already made voluntary improvements using the Green Deal.

In theory this approach should eradicate the worst performance (F and G SAP-rated), but it doesn’t guarantee a minimum standard, and this needs to be set in absolute terms - say the number of kWh used per square meter per year.

The Warm Home Discount is a step towards such an approach using energy bill rebates.

However, it is currently confined to a single subset of target groups and is not linked at all to any characteristic of the dwelling.

It should therefore be reformed and made conditional on a combination of the above interventions.

This approach is argued for by Paul Ekins, of the UCL Energy Institute, University College London, and Matthew Lockwood, Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Institute of Development Studies, at the University of Sussex in a new report on Tackling fuel poverty during the transition to a low-carbon economy.

They propose that any energy bill rebates would be paid to eligible recipients, from the moment they are given their smart meters, while their energy efficiency upgrading is being done, and through the follow-up advisory stage.

The cost of this could partly be paid for, they say, through a reform of the Winter Fuel Payments, which is currently also not targeted well enough.

The cost of eliminating fuel poverty

The IPPR and National Energy Action recently tried to estimate the cost of doing this through energy efficiency measures and came up with around £20–30 billion for England, or up to £64 billion for the whole of the UK.

The combined annual average spend on Warm Front, the CERT priority group and CESP is just around £1 billion for 2008–2011.

At that rate it would take 20-30 years to get around to every household in England.

Doubling the annual spend to £2 billion would end fuel poverty in England within 10–15 years as well as creating jobs.

Quadrupling it would bring the end date even nearer.

Given the huge amounts being spent on bailing out the banking system this is a small consideration that would save thousands of lives and vastly improve the quality of life for millions of people in this country.

And it is about the same amount as that spent on the measures I list above anyway - so there wouldn't be much change, it would simply be better targeted. There would just be the cost of running the helpline and administering the process.

And this sum is not much more than the £1.77bn being spent per year already on the measures listed above.

So there would be just a slight step change financially; and the money would simply be better targeted, with an additional cost for running the helpline and administering the process.

If the cost of a £2bn spend were completely to be passed on to the consumer, it would add £80, or 6%, to an average annual energy bill of £1,200, and the fuel poor would automatically be protected from this by the rebate.

Surely this is worth it?

Construction industry and public "not ready" for the Green Deal

The UK construction industry is largely unaware of - or unprepared for - the opportunities which the Green Deal represents, and the Government has a long way to go to convince the public to take part, according to two new pieces of research.

A survey by the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group has found that only 35% of product manufacturers believe that the Green Deal - due to be implemented in under 14 months - represents an “important opportunity", and only 31% have suitable products ready to meet the demand.

Organisations surveyed - 100 manufacturers and 15 installers, who will be required to renovate the nation's 29 million homes - appear unclear as to what opportunities the Green Deal represents for them and what they should be doing about it.

Yet the Government believes that by 2017 there will be a workforce of 100,000 qualified installers. Furthermore, the products and systems supplied to home owners will need to be approved by the UK Accreditation Service in just over a year.

Moreover, these products must not disappoint the home owner once installed but must work effectively. The British Standards Institute is developing a Publicly Available Specification (PAS 2030) for this purpose.

Installers must also be fully trained and home owners must know how to take advantage of their new products in a year's time.

What motivates the public?

When questioned, suppliers said they believe that home owners' reasons for installing energy-saving services are mostly driven by financial considerations: reducing energy costs (33%), for generating extra income (22%).

They see the principal benefits being reducing energy bills (55%) and generating renewable energy at home (45%).

This is backed up by a second report, The Green Gap, by YouGov for utility and environmental consultancy Gemserv, which found that 61% of homeowners would consider installing technology such as solar PV panels, hydro power or using biomass fuel to generate their own energy.

However, over half said the technology is too dear, a third didn't know how much cash they would get back, and over half - 54% - didn't know that the Green Deal is about energy efficiency in the home.

14% thought it was to do with protecting outdoor spaces like forests, and 9% thought it was about encouraging take-up of low carbon cars.

Chris Ashworth, author of the CIMCIG report, Taking Sustainability To The Consumer, said this was a wake-up call to installers and manufacturers who seem to be failing to grasp the enormous earning potential of the Green Deal.

He said: "The main challenge for manufacturers in this sector is to understand the motivations of the UK consumer.

"As a committee, (the institute) is dedicated to helping marketers in the construction industry develop best practices and capitalise on opportunities.

"In the current market conditions it takes initiative and imagination to create sales."

The need for the right marketing

The report found a disconnect between the sales and marketing departments of manufacturers, while marketing did not seem aware of initiatives being taken by the sales departments.

The Institute recommends that marketeers change the language they use in communicating with the public. “The language of low carbon is not seen as relevant to the choices people make in their everyday lives" says the report.

It is for this reason that the Zero Carbon Hub, which supports the building of new zero carbon homes, is recommending the use of the term “a new way of living".

The Institute has recognised that the Zero Carbon debate is actually impeding progress in motivating the public.

Currently, DECC's Behavioural Insights Team is researching how people can be influenced by incentives, joint action in their communities, and by behavioural feedback.

So far, it has found that homeowners need simple, clear and powerful information to help them make decisions.

The barriers for them include: a lack of understanding, lack of awareness, a conservative attitude to change, mistrust of installers, and cost.

The CIMCIG report breaks down the public into different segments who need to be approached in different ways: 'positive greens' make up 80% of the population; 'waste watchers' make up another 12%; ‘concern consumers’ make up 14%; ‘sideline supporters’ are 14%; ‘cautious participants’ are 14%; ‘stalled starters’ are 10%; and the ‘honestly disengaged' make up the last 18%.

The report concludes by saying the entire construction industry must work together - trade associations, manufacturers, contractors, wholesalers and installers - in an effective supply chain, in contrast with others such as energy companies and major retailers who have recognised the opportunity and are starting to act. Otherwise, traditional retailers risk being marginalised as the Green Deal becomes mainstream.

Installers of solar electricity systems for the Feed-In Tariffs have already shown how to take advantage of government support. For example, the Green Home Company has secured private finance to allow it to install free solar photovoltaic systems in the Kent area.

One positive initiative is where energy companies have been partnering with merchants to make it easier to buy insulation at subsidised prices, by creating online calculators so that homeowners can work out how many rolls of insulation to buy, and by offering free delivery.

The Energy Saving trust's website Think insulation is also a useful one-stop shop for consumers.

To help stakeholders DECC has set up four forums through which it is developing support for accreditation, capacity and innovation, and how to maximise energy efficiency.

Sustainable Home Refurbishment

My new book, Sustainable Home Refurbishment: The Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency, is out now, published by Earthscan.

Praise for this title:

"This is an excellent book - comprehensively-researched, powerfully-presented and crystal clear. It should be the first stop for anyone seeking objective advice in a field cluttered with misleading claims. I couldn't recommend it more strongly." - George Monbiot

"As the idea of radical retrofit of our existing housing stock gradually moves from geek-dom to chic-dom, this book is a must have for all involved in this burgeoning industry. This book is both for the capable amateur and the professionally engaged.

"There is all the detail you could wish for with a vast array of practical examples and materials. This is not a book for the total novice but is a life saver for anyone on the road to radical retrofit.

"We can't recommend it highly enough. David has managed to make the book a good and interesting ready whilst managing to get all the necessary hard-core energy information in there as well." - Penney Poyzer (tv presenter, writer, Queen of Green, grass roots activist) and Gil Schalom (architect) .

Order it using the link above.

A retro-fit offers many benefits: cutting electricity and heating bills, increasing the resale value of homes, slashing carbon emissions and creating a healthier place to live. This book is the guide to making it happen.

It looks at:

• draught-proofing, insulation and damp
• ventilation, heating and cooling
• electrical efficiency and renewable energy
• water use and re-use
• materials' life cycles and incorporating nature
• protection from climate change impacts
• modelling energy flows and embodied energy
• how we can meet the need to cut carbon emissions from dwellings by 80% by 2050.

Projects can apply to apartment blocks, recent builds and older, solid-walled properties.

Enlivened with helpful diagrams and photographs, plus plenty of pointers for further information, it provides a comprehensive resource handbook for any building professional and contractor, students - or any homeowner serious about efficiency (cash and carbon) savings.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Airtightness: Reducing Energy Demand for Heating and Cooling

2. Insulation Materials

3. Insulation Strategies

4. Going All The Way - Towards Passivhaus

5. Windows and Doors

6. Ventilation, Cooling and Heating

7. Water Management

8. Electricity Efficiency and Supply

9. Contextual Issues