Retrofitting is essential to constructing a greener future

By Trevor Wilkins, Managing Director at PAH Building & Construction

Environmental and sustainability issues have been part of the construction conversation for years now. Yet despite mounting urgency to address the significant impact of the built environment, the challenge of effectively retrofitting older buildings means that demolishing the old to make space for new continues to be the industry standard.

Marks & Spencer’s recent court victory to demolish and rebuild its flagship 1929 art deco London store dealt a blow not only to Michael Gove, who originally blocked the controversial plans, but also to campaigners concerned about the carbon footprint of the proposed scheme.

According to Green Alliance, at least 15 million homes in the UK need to be retrofitted by 2030 to meet the UK’s carbon targets. Clearly futureproofing our housing stock for a growing population hinges as much on bringing older buildings up to scratch as it does on building new homes.

Rethinking retrofit

Currently, over half of the UK’s 28 million existing homes pre-date 1965, with 85% of homes still relying on gas boilers for heating and approximately 50% featuring uninsulated walls.

Delivering an effective countrywide retrofit initiative would not only benefit the environment but homeowners too, as it would nearly triple the UK’s current rate of energy efficiency, reducing household bills while lessening the carbon footprint of the power grid.

The solution lies in an industry-wide adoption of ‘deep’ retrofitting as the norm, through analysing and enhancing existing systems in older buildings to improve energy efficiency and reduce operational carbon, potentially reducing emissions by up to 80%.

Tackling these types of refurbishment projects involves the examination of various elements in the home, including insulation, ventilation, and renewable energy sources. Heat pumps, for example, are an effective alternative to gas boilers for a range of buildings and the Government has recently increased its support for this renewable energy source by providing grants of up to £7,500 through its Boiler Upgrade Scheme.

Addressing challenges

Despite the financial and logistical challenges of improving existing stock due to the varying age and design of a large portion of our homes, deploying innovative design and construction methods is making the process simpler.

Commonplace issues in older properties, such as damp, draughts and heat loss, can be effectively addressed with improved insulation methods. Solutions such as sealing masonry with a parge coat, and strategically insulating hot water pipes can address these issues head on and help to make homes more comfortable.

To mitigate overheating, reflective and green planted surfaces can reduce or slow the transfer of heat radiation, and a building can be fitted with skylights to function as an ‘exhaust’ for a build-up of heat. Shading in the form of balconies and heat pumps that reverse refrigerant flow, can also tackle overheating issues.

Photovoltaic cells, or solar panels, are probably the best-known renewable energy source and fitting them onto older homes is becoming increasingly commonplace. There are other possibilities too. Larger, community-scale Combined Heat & Power (CHP) has been around since the 1970s but the technology for Micro-CHP units for individual properties, while currently an expensive luxury, is easy to install and could become more popular if it was at a cost suitable for the mainstream market. Ultimately, we need for the costs to come down to roll this out more widely in households.

Modern kitchens and bathrooms fitted with effective water saving systems such as flow restricting taps and dual flushes further improve the overall efficiency of homes. Meanwhile, the installation of new floors and fittings with naturally hardwearing and insulating materials not only futureproofs homes, but makes them more desirable, creating spaces that people want to live, work, and relax in.

Retrofitting will also help to upskill and futureproof the industry. PwC estimates that a widespread adoption of retrofitting could support some 580,000 new roles in the UK, including over 94,000 in trade skills, particularly heating engineers, glazers, plumbers and insulation specialists, enabling the UK to become a world leader in green skills.

The scale of the problem is clear. Incentives for schemes that deliver the considerable benefits of retrofitting to upgrade the UK’s substandard housing stock are essential if we are to reach ambitious net-zero targets. The revolution is already overdue, and proactivity from the industry and Government is now required to embrace the best of the old to make something entirely new and fit for purpose for generations to come.

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by Ben Hamman

Sound foundations needed for the future of construction in the UK

The Labour Government needs to invest in training and outreach now, to ‘Get Britain Building,’ says Mark Cuttriss Director at PAH Building & Construction

Following Labour’s landslide victory, Labour has not shied away from their pledges to increase housebuilding and lower immigration – but therein lies a problem. The number of construction workers in the UK has fallen by 14% since 20191 mainly due to EU citizens going back home as a result of Brexit and older workers retiring – leaving a skills gap that threatens to derail the entire construction industry.

With major projects such as HS2 and the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant facing delays due to lack of skilled workers, not to mention the 31% of SME construction companies who find themselves unable to find qualified staff2, slowing down projects across the land, Labour now needs to start to unlock projects and tackle the skills gap.

If there’s one thing that the construction industry excels at, however, it is problem solving; so it’s time the industry put its heads together and came up with a plan of action to keep Britain building. The first place to start has to be with education – when children start thinking about what they want to do with their lives, we need to make sure that construction is on that list of possibilities. Construction is the cornerstone of the built environment, and with 250,000 additional construction workers needed by 20282, it has never been more crucial for us to educate and inspire a new generation of workers on the vast opportunities it presents.

Obviously, we can’t fling open the gates of our building sites to 11-year-olds, but we could take the wonderful world of construction to them with projects, competitions, talks and a presence at careers fairs. It’s an approach that we know works – when STEM subjects were highlighted in schools, backed by outreach from major companies like Rolls Royce, the number of pupils going on to college or university to study engineering jumped by 14% in a decade3. In particular, we need to stress the variety of career opportunities on offer – with hard-to-fill vacancies ranging from project managers to site labourers, there really is something that might be of interest to every young person.

Secondly, we need to review the quality of apprenticeships. It’s a sorry indictment on the industry that while 31,000 young people began a construction apprenticeship in the past five years, more than 40% dropped out over concerns about the quality of training amid tight build schedules4. Apprentices are an investment, for the company they work with and for the industry as a whole, so any business that takes them on needs to be prepared to dedicate time and resources to giving them proper training.

The classroom-based side of apprenticeships needs reviewing too, to make sure that the techniques being taught are up-to-date and relevant; for example, the skills shortage is particularly evident in retrofitting, which requires skilled professionals to upgrade and futureproof the housing stock we already have. I’d like to see increased Government investment in specialised apprenticeships for young people to gain hands-on experience and training in retrofitting our aging housing stock, and in modern methods of construction, that will ultimately enable projects to be delivered more quickly and sustainably to meet demand. A long-term national strategy by Labour to train young people in green skills is also fundamental to ensure there is a pipeline in place to address the shortage.

Finally, we need to make young people, and older career-changers, aware of the many advantages of taking a job in this field. The current skills gap and lack of people joining the construction industry is creating significant problems and halting the speed of delivery for new homes and infrastructure projects we so urgently need, so it goes without saying that there are large numbers of jobs available for people at every stage, from entry-level to managerial, and plenty of opportunities to progress up the career ladder. According to the Financial Times, because of the shortage of staff, pay has increased dramatically in this sector, and wages in construction were 22% higher at the end of 2023 than at the start of 2019.

With great financial rewards and even greater job satisfaction, it’s time to convince both schoolchildren and job-hunters that they can have a rich and fulfilling career in construction.

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by Ben Hamman