A Phased Retrofit

The clients for this project are committed to sustainability and yet pragmatic and limited with their budget. They got in touch with MJM as they had just bought a house and were seeking help on improving it’s energy efficiency and to optimise sustainability on a wider scale including embedded environmental costs, quality of living, and cost.

 

Having lived in the house for a short while the client also wanted to modernise the ground floor layout to provide an open plan kitchen diner, along with a utility room. A retrofit assessment  was carried out which also highlighted issues with damp forming on some of the walls during the winter period. The cause of the damp was a combination of poor ventilation and uninsulated sections of wall and roof. 

 

MJM developed a retrofit plan for how the house could be developed to provide an approx. 70% improvement to the energy efficiency for the whole house. We explored with the clients options for how to implement the plan by making improvements to walls, floors, roof, windows and the services (heating, hot water etc). During this process it became apparent that the budget would not stretch to the whole retrofit plan and the reordering works and so a 2 phased approach to the retrofit process was devised. 

 

Phase 1 would incorporate the changes to the layout of the ground floor and those retrofit elements that would make the biggest difference whilst also solving the issues with damp. Phase 2 could then be carried out at a later date when funds allow. The benefit of having the long term plan is that the works could then be completed according to priority and without risk of duplicating or clashing parts. 

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