Residential Retrofit: 24 Case Studies

The UK housing stock is one of the oldest in Europe: over half of its dwellings were built prior to 1960. What options do we have to transform these older houses into spaces that are both comfortable and sustainable? Retrofit, renovation, refurbishment, restoration and repair are all means of extending a building’s useful life. Given today’s housing crisis, energy inefficiencies and finite resources, the reuse and adaptation of existing building stock needs to be approached with creativity, expertise and a holistic mindset. Since the original publication in 2013 there has been a growth in demand for retrofit, driven by net-zero targets, increased awareness of climate change, and evolving policy, along with a desire to understand how retrofit projects perform in the long term. The second edition of Residential Retrofit responds to this need by returning to a number of the original case studies after 10 years to assess their performance, as well as considering four entirely new projects. These case studies showcase how UK practitioners have approached the challenge of meeting ambitious carbon reduction targets, offering critical, real-world feedback to inform and guide the wider rollout of retrofit across the country. Features: • Data from 24 case studies, including new findings from a 2023 Building Performance Evaluation of six of the original case studies, as well as four new projects. • Illustrated projects from pre- and post-1919, reflecting the broad variety of construction types within the UK housing stock and a wide range of solutions. • Post-completion measurements, including energy demand, airtightness, relative humidity levels and temperatures. • Insights from a collaboration between CIBSE's Head of Net Zero Julie Godefroy and Marion Baeli, working alongside Innovate UK, Historic England and UCL.