Upgrading the Performace of Existing UK Homes

Today I attended Ecobuild in London. For those who are unfamiliar with Ecobuild, it is the world’s biggest annual convention dedicated to sustainable design, construction and the built environment.

The highlight today was a series of seminars presented by four of the leading experts in sustainable residential refurbishment.

Gavin Killip, Senior Researcher, Oxford Environmental Change Institute

Russell Smith, Managing Director, Parity Eco Solutions

Paul Ellis, Chief Executive, Ecology Building Society

John Doggart, Chairman, Sustainable Energy Academy

All four speakers highlighted the need to upgrade the UK's existing housing stock in order to achieve the Governments target of 80% CO2 reduction by 2050, and possible ways of achieving this.

There are currently about £23m individual houses in the UK, it is estimated that 75-80% of these will still be standing in 2050. If we don't start upgrading them now we will still be sitting with the same problems in 40 years, or we will all be sucking in seawater. Building Regulations and the Code for Sustainable Homes are doing great things for new build homes, that's wonderful, honestly - well done, but we also need to look to those houses that are already standing.

Wake up UK, we need to move on this now. If you are planning any works to your existing home, you need to look into upgrading the energy performance as well. Insulating the envelope, water conservation measures, renewable energy technology - all these can be installed easier and more cost effectively if done concurrently with other works. A great new free tool for investigating your sustainable refurbishment works is T-Zero.

Think about it! Act on it today!