Futurefit launches

£1.2M retrofitting challenge gets ready to launch

Contractors Apollo, Rydon and Keepmoat have been appointed to take up the challenge of giving a low carbon makeover to 102 Affinity Sutton homes.

Work is set to start on Futurefit, a £1.2M  two year project to test practical approaches to making social housing more energy efficient, in November 2010.

Building surveyors Baily Garner have been appointed to scope the project and environmental consultants Camco and Fontenergy have joined to identify potential funding mechanisms that may allow large scale retrofit to take place in the social housing sector.

Twenty two different property types – commonly found across Affinity Sutton’s 55,000 homes and more widely in the social housing sector – have been identified to test measures to reduce C02 emissions and improve energy efficiency.  And three different budgets, already publicised in the retrofit debate, will be trialled to carry out the improvements – ranging from the £6,500 pledged by the Conservative Party in their Green Deal, the £10,000 proposed in the Labour Party’s pay-as-you-save scheme and the £25,000 widely accepted in the housing sector as a realistic figure for whole-house retrofit. Residents will also be informed of green lifestyle changes they can make to both  maximise their homes’ energy efficiency  and to help understand the contribution that behaviour change can make to the UK’s carbon reduction targets.

Residents and staff will be closely involved in choosing the different retrofit works that will be carried out at a number of the properties.

Affinity Sutton announced in June it was launching Futurefit – to meet the challenge of retrofitting England’s housing stock.  The UK Climate Change Act seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.

It is estimated around 80 per cent of the houses we’ll be living in by 2050 have already been built. So it is critical that affordable housing providers, such as Affinity Sutton, look at ways to dramatically improve the performance of our existing housing stock.

All of the measures used in each retrofit will be monitored and evaluated to establish their success, assess the impact of lifestyle on their effectiveness and the value for money of each measure.   An online knowledge hub has also been set up to share ideas and lessons learned.

The initial findings of the project will be published in a report in May 2012.

Jeremy Kape, Director of Property Investment, for Affinity Sutton, said:  “FutureFit is not a ‘one-off’ or show home project, and it will not focus on individual technologies or achieving the highest carbon reduction possible regardless of cost. Instead, it will drill down into the practicabilities of delivering low carbon retrofit to social housing stock, looking at the obstacles and identifying solutions. The project will investigate how to identify the most suitable package of works for our properties, and how these can be delivered; how we can engage with our residents on the issues of retrofit and energy efficiency and lifestyle; and what financial models might allow us to deliver low carbon improvements to our wider stock in the coming years.