Four essentials for a low carbon retrofit

Upgrading or renovating a commercial or domestic building? It’s the perfect opportunity to upgrade the carbon performance too.

1. Define the opportunities

Every building will offer different opportunities and challenges. To understand them, you’ll need to assess the entire building, rather than focusing on a single area, because so many elements affect others. A full audit is essential.

2. Balance risk and benefit

Not every energy saving tool that works in a new build may work for a retrofit, such as solid wall insulation, so it’s important to ensure the measures you propose work in harmony with the building, protecting ventilation and guarding against damp.

3. Retrofit in the right order

Plan the refit to avoid waste and cost. Installing a new, energy efficient boiler or heat pump and insulating the building? Make the building more energy efficient first so the equipment can be matched to the new heating requirements of the building, not the old.

4. Engage the occupants

The simplest way to reduce carbon is to conserve energy. That can only be done by the people who’ll be using the building day to day.

Ensure they build on the good work of the retrofit by engaging them on ways they can minimise their carbon footprint.

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