How it works
How does our one-stop retrofit service work?
The Cosy Homes Oxfordshire service centres on a whole house approach to home retrofit, providing a full, one-stop-shop service to help you increase the energy efficiency of your home.
Once you register your home you will be looked after by our dedicated Retrofit Coordinator team. Scroll down this page for an outline of the full process, where costs come in, and the different routes to get started.
Step 1: Home assessment
The first step is for one of our Retrofit Assessors will come and assess your whole house to find out everything we need to know about your property.
Step 2: Whole House Plan
Your Retrofit Coordinator will then use this information to develop a bespoke Whole House Plan for your home, detailing all the measures you could take to make your home as energy efficient as possible as a whole, with recommendations on the most cost effective and impactful measures to take forward, and in which order.
“The Whole House Plan provided a holistic view of where we could make energy saving improvements. The written report is well structured, giving a good overview summary and then going into detail for the different options – including information about carbon footprint. Excellent value for money, and I have already recommended Cosy Homes Oxfordshire to several other people!”
Dr Heather Comina, Cosy Homes Oxfordshire client
What costs are involved?
Every home is different, so the cost of a whole house retrofit can vary greatly based on the type of home and the measures needed. There are costs associated with a few stages of our Cosy Homes Oxfordshire process, outlined below:
Plan builder – free
Using our Plan Builder to explore the possibility of home retrofit for your home is completely free and will give you an idea of the installation costs as well as the potential cost and carbon savings.
Home Assessment and Whole House Plan – £250 – £475
A Home Assessment and Whole House Plan costs:
- 1-2 bed home – £250 (inc. VAT)
- 3-4 bed home – £475 (inc. VAT)
- 5+ bed home – price on request*
This cost covers the time needed to assess your home, and for the Retrofit Coordinator to create your bespoke Plan.
*This is because we’ve found that homes with more than 5 bedrooms often also have more complex layouts e.g. multiple buildings, so we’ll need to find out more about your home first.
Client Service Agreement – £500 to £1500
After you’ve reviewed your Whole House Plan with your Retrofit Coordinator and decided which measures to progress with, you will be sent a Client Services Agreement (CSA). The CSA outlines any additional costs before work can begin on your retrofit project.
This will likely include a Building Performance Requirement (BPR) and any additional technical reports to provide detailed quotes. Every home is unique and the cost will vary depending on the home and the measures needed, but a typical project will have costs of £500-£1500 (+VAT). Our team are always happy to talk you through your CSA to ensure you understand any costs included.
This stage is crucial for our whole house retrofit approach. We typically work on complex home retrofits where there are multiple measures in play. With these complicated projects it’s very important that contractors have a detailed understanding of the building to avoid any issues such as thermal bridging, ventilation, or damp.
Delivery of retrofit work – 5% project charge
If you go ahead with your home retrofit, there will be a 5% project charge for our service, and this cost will also be outlined in your CSA.
Our Retrofit Coordinator team does not do the day-to-day project management of the retrofit project, but they will help guide you through every stage of the process, from start to finish:
- Facilitating any contract documents between yourself and the contractor/s.
- Coordinating the retrofit measures to ensure they are appropriately sequenced.
- Inspect the work done to ensure the contractor delivers what they have promised.
- Will be on hand to help resolve any issues or conflicts that may arise.
- Sign off the work, and give you the all-clear to pay the contractor.
The cost of delivering a home retrofit can vary from home to home depending on factors such as the size and age of the property. Use our free online Plan Builder to get an idea of current costs.
For complicated projects, where day to day coordination of multiple contractors is required and a prime contractor has not been appointed, the householder should consider engaging a full time project manager.
Our process in full
It’s then up to you to choose which measures you go ahead with, with the support and advice of your Retrofit Coordinator. We help coordinate the delivery of the work, find trusted contractors and check the quality of delivery once complete.
How to get started
The first step is to use our free Plan Builder tool to build a draft home retrofit plan based on existing data about your home, and which suits your budget and priorities.
You can then submit your plan through the Plan Builder, which will send it to our team. One of our Retrofit Assessors will be in touch to discuss the next step and book your home assessment and Whole House Plan.
“We had wanted to improve the thermal efficiency of our home to reduce our carbon footprint. That is when we found the dedicated CHO service that provides great expertise, made recommendations to us in a Whole House Plan, and were able to organise and supervise contractors. It was brilliant.”
Andy Pedley, Cosy Homes Oxfordshire Client
