What goes into the retrofitting of social housing

What goes into the retrofitting of social housing from the 1920s, 1970’s and 2010’s to help meet modern performance standards?

To find out, Peter Haddock visited the Liverpool John Moores University Test Houses to meet with retrofit project manager Ryan Atkinson of Wienerberger.

He has led the team that transformed three terrace properties,  each representing a different construction era, using its Renatus solution. All of which have multiple sensors embedded throughout the property to measure performance pre and post retrofit.

Starting with the 1920s house, Ryan explained some of the performance improvements that have been layered together:

“On this property we’ve installed 200mm external wall insulation with render, a completely new roof build up with membrane and tiles, plus in roof solar panels. All together these changes combine to turn it into a much better performing house.”

For the 1970s house, Ryan explained that retrofitting the heating system can avoid unnecessary disruption:

“In this house, we’ve removed the gas boiler and installed an air source heat pump, but kept all the existing plumbing. We’ve upgraded the radiators, and we’re testing whether the heat pump can perform as efficiently as the gas boiler.”

“On the 2010s house, we’ve also got a heat pump and installed solar panels with batteries, more external wall insulation, new windows and doors, and brick slips externally, which really help in conservation areas where appearance matters.”

“And through the use of sensors, we are tracking temperature and humidity levels so we can understand exactly how each property is performing. That data is already helping us to feed back into the design and specification stage of our Renatus solution.

“So when it’s fitted and installed correctly into real houses, we are able to guarantee the EPC certificate at the end, which is great news for tenants and social housing providers.”