MYWARMHOME.CO.UK • THE RETROFIT PROCESS
Your home.
Your retrofit.
The people living in the home need to be part of the works.
Good retrofit isn’t something that should simply happen to your property. Your priorities, how you use your home and your experience after the work all matter.
1
Talk about
How you heat the home, where it feels cold, where condensation appears and what you want to improve.
2
Understand it
You should understand what is being installed, why it has been chosen and what will change inside your home.
3
Be involved
Ask questions, report problems and speak up if something during the installation doesn’t look or feel right.
4
Live with it
The real test comes afterwards. Heating, controls and ventilation need to work for the people actually living there.
WHY YOUR INPUT MATTERS
Nobody knows your home quite like you do.
An assessor can inspect the building, take measurements and collect evidence, but they are only in your home for a limited time. You know which bedroom is always cold, which window suffers condensation, whether the bathroom stays damp, how quickly the house warms up and which controls nobody understands.
That information can be just as important as a measurement. A successful retrofit should combine the condition of the building with the needs of the people living inside it.
Before work starts.
Assessment
A qualified Retrofit Assessor collects information about the construction, insulation, heating, ventilation and condition of the property. Photographs and measurements provide a record that can later be used by the Retrofit Coordinator, designer and installers.
This is also your opportunity to explain how the home actually behaves. Mention cold rooms, draughts, condensation, mould, overheating, noisy fans, difficult controls or anything else that affects comfort.
Lots of photographs may be taken during an assessment. They are there to record the condition and construction of the property — not to judge how somebody lives.
Plan & design
The assessment feeds into the retrofit plan and design. The aim is for insulation, heating, ventilation and other measures to work together rather than being treated as completely separate jobs.
The Retrofit Coordinator oversees the process and manages the risks associated with the project. This is where questions should be answered before work begins — not after everything has been installed.
Where appropriate, improvements may follow a fabric-first approach, but the important point is that the measures need to make sense for the building and its occupants.
A warmer home still needs fresh air.
Insulation and airtightness can change the way moisture and air move through a home. Ventilation therefore needs to be considered alongside energy-efficiency improvements.
That could mean suitable extract ventilation, background ventilators or a whole-house system. Whatever is fitted, the occupier needs to know what it does, why it is there and how it should be used.
While the work is happening.
Prepare first
Damp, defects, structural problems and unsuitable ventilation may need resolving before insulation or other measures are installed.
Expect disruption
Retrofit can involve noise, dust, scaffold, access to rooms and temporary changes to heating or hot water. You should be told what to expect.
Keep talking
If something changes, a detail cannot be installed as designed or you are concerned about the work, raise it before it disappears behind plaster, insulation or render.
Qualified and appropriately accredited installers may be carrying out the physical work, but that doesn’t mean the occupier becomes a bystander. Good communication should continue throughout the installation.
Handover shouldn’t be a carrier bag full of paperwork.
When the work is finished you should understand your home better than you did before it started.
- How do I control the heating?
- What temperatures has the system been designed around?
- How should I use the ventilation?
- Which vents or fans should remain running?
- What needs servicing or cleaning?
- Where are the warranties and guarantees?
- Who do I contact if something stops working?
- What information should I keep for the future?
Depending on the measures installed, documentation may include commissioning information, warranties, insurance-backed guarantees, benchmark records, MCS documentation and operating instructions.
Then comes the most important test.
Does it actually work for you?
Technical monitoring can check whether work has been installed correctly. But there is another type of feedback that matters just as much: what happens when people start living normally in the home again.
Is the home warmer? Are energy bills behaving as expected? Is condensation reducing? Are rooms overheating? Is the heat pump comfortable? Can everyone operate the controls? Is the ventilation too noisy, or has somebody switched it off because they didn’t understand why it was running?
This is why I believe technical monitoring and meaningful occupant feedback should play a much bigger part in retrofit. Completing the installation should not automatically mean the learning stops.
THE MYWARMHOME VIEW
Retrofit should be done with people.
Not to people.
Designers and installers understand their specialist areas. The occupier understands what it is actually like to live in the home. Successful retrofit needs both.
The home is a system. The people living in it are part of that system.