Retrofitting

I am delighted to be able to use the Mabey Hire case study – Behind the Facade - to illustrate the growing debate about retrofitting buildings to meet the environmental zero-carbon targets. It's certainly cheaper, or more cost effective, to repurpose a building, rather than knocking it down and rebuilding, converting office buildings into smaller and more flexible workplaces, and turning industrial units in to homes. And, although Mabey Hire's temporary supporting structure for the listed building's façade will not have been cheap, the ongoing cultural and social benefits will be huge.

Most of the existing commercial and residential buildings in the country will still be around when we need to meet our zero-carbon targets, many of them listed or protected, and forming a vital part of our cultural heritage. Retrofitting, therefore, is a growing and vital factor in our drive towards greater sustainability.

Much of our housing stock, though, stretches from Victorian terraces to 1950's housing estates, and their construction showed scant regard for environmental concerns. As such, they are incapable of accommodating the latest heating technologies – heat pumps and exchangers – and any attempt to replace existing carbon-based heating technologies is strongly resisted. We will still be arguing about log-fires, hydrogen fuels and solar farms well into the 2050s.

We don't have the workforce to build the houses we need now, let alone attempting wholesale retrofitting of the housing stock, even if owners in the main, could afford it. It's an interesting conundrum, therefore. Futurebuild was awash with the latest technologies designed to address the problem, but, without additional funding from the Government or some more creative solutions, we are going to find it difficult to meet our target.

David Chadwick

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