Retrofit news

A new PwC report released ahead of UN World Environment Day found that from energy bill savings alone it can take, on average, at least 10 years to cover the upfront costs of making energy efficiency improvements to UK homes.  A survey of 1,000 adults found

The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has reported that the national shortage of construction materials is getting worse. With the UK opening up after a series of lockdowns, construction activity is at the highest rate in the past seven years. But, this

Researchers at Nottingham University have released the results from their recent research into the best approaches to improving the energy efficiency of older homes. Professor Mark Gillott and his team constructed a replica 1930s semi-detached house on campus

The Green Homes Grant scheme for homeowners was scrapped in March of this year. At this time the Government allocated an additional £300 million of funding to the Local Authority Delivery side of the Green Homes Grant scheme, wherein households could access

The International Energy Agency (IEA) have advised that no new fossil fuel boilers should be sold from 2025 onwards if the world is to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of this century. This is part of their newly released report Net Zero by 2050,

100 social housing properties in the north east of Scotland will be upgraded to improve energy efficiency, using a fabric first approach to retrofit. This will be at no cost to tenants or landlords, due to £2.2 million of funding from the government through

The Government’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on Energy Efficiency of Existing Homes was published today. There is little response in the report itself, with the focus instead on the imminent Heat and Buildings Strategy, where

This week the Times covered the story of an eco retrofit of a rural home in St Catherine’s Valley near Bath – including insulation and external

A cross-party group of MPs making up the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has called for the Green Homes Grant to be replaced with a new and improved multi-year energy efficiency scheme in the upcoming Spending Review, in a letter to the Business

The April release of data from the Government on the Green Homes Grant shows that applications were increasing in the months before the scheme was scrapped, with a record number of applications made in March 2021. This comes after the Government blamed the

How many green jobs could be created in your constituency? This new tool from the Green New Deal team can tell you, and help you lobby your local MP to put them in place. Green New Deal are highlighting the jobs lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, and calling

The UK government is to set in law the world’s most ambitious climate change target, cutting emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. This is in line with the most recent recommendation from the Climate Change Committee, and will be part of the

This week in Building News Sam Stacey, Challenge Director at Transforming Construction, UKRI, argued that we can take learnings from the way that Thomas Crapper’s valve-and-siphon design was implemented in British homes across the country in the early 20th

Five major housing associations in the UK have signed a partnership to improve the energy efficiency of homes in their regions, totalling over 300,000 homes. The Greener Futures Partnership (GFP) is made up of Abri, Anchor Hanover, Home Group, Hyde and

Hundreds of thousands of new job roles are needed if we are to achieve a clean energy transition and meet net zero targets in the UK. Dina Potter of the National Grid believes that investing in young people is key to this, and that we now need to ensure that

Ashden is calling for a revolution in green skills training, following the scrapping of the Green Homes Grant scheme in March 2021. If we are to retrofit millions of homes and stick to our carbon targets, the UK must drastically scale

The Green Homes Grant is now closed and longer taking applications, as of 31 March 2021. Any applications already submitted will still be progressed. The Green Homes Grant was a scheme offering vouchers of up to £5,000 (£10,000 for low income households)

MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme) certifies low-carbon products and installations used to produce electricity and heat from renewable sources. They support the growth of small scale renewables in the UK – such as solar rooftop panels on homes

Today the Environmental Audit Committee released their latest report: Energy Efficiency of Existing Homes. The report warns that the UK Government is currently failing to grasp the enormous challenge of decarbonising the UK’s housing stock, which accounts

New labelling on energy efficiency for household appliances (such as fridges, washing machines, freezers etc) is being phased in. This change is because energy labelling was originally brought in over 25 years ago in the UK, and appliances have become much