River Clyde Homes Retrofit Projects - The Gibson Project & Prospecthill Court in Greenock

The Gibson Project - Deep Retrofit & Low Carbon Heating

I know it seems like we’ve been doing pilots for over a decade now, and my good friend Peter Rickaby has bemoaned that we just need to get on and “do retrofit”. 

He’s right. However, this one is different. The Gibson Project – reasons for the name below – will allow us to look at a number of different issues and how we scope and specify works, and how we might phase the delivery of them.

The house itself is located in the Inverclyde area and is a modest 1950s cavity construction flat – of which there are tens of thousands in the West of Scotland.

The main objective is how we, as a landlord, reduce the demand for space heating within a socially rented home and implement the lessons we learn from this through our ongoing retrofit programme.  

Lessons that allow us to transition to renewable or low-carbon heating, such as heat pumps, in a socially and environmentally sustainable way. Remember, the low-carbon electricity we all need as part of our net zero goal currently sits at 34 pence a KWh here in the UK, so a good CoP in social housing is critical.

Practically, we’ll understand how to over-clad cavity walls and position the windows to mitigate thermal bridging, reducing heat loss and minimising air changes. We’ll determine which measures we can apply in tenanted homes – which might be a lighter retrofit. And where we can go deeper when the house doesn’t have an occupant.

And what measures do we prioritise now - as a must, and what do we do in the future? So how do we phase and implement retrofit within social housing in an affordable and viable way for the association and our customers over the coming two decades?

 And how do we design and specify heat pumps to maximise their output and benefit our customers – and what do we do about hot water? We still haven't really solved that problem in falts - does everyone get a 100-litre cylinder, or can we be smarter?

We’ll aim to assess and understand both operational and embodied carbon within retrofit and how we try to limit the number of products with a high carbon footprint. Along the way, we hope to use local, regional and national products and supply chains. Favouring natural and more environmentally friendly materials where possible.

But my personal favourite and it’s the reason why I work for an Association. We need to be forward-thinking, so how we future-proof our homes – both in terms of asset management, maintenance and value for money – but also from our changing climate.

What measures do we put in place now to deal with possible overheating and increased rainfall - so drainage, shading and gutters are all really important? But also, how do we ensure there is good air quality for those living in our homes? And what practical things can we put in place inside the home that makes it easier for the tenant to stay there throughout their time living with us - these things are often overlooked within retrofit, which is understandably focussed on energy efficiency and space heating demand.

So the project is small in its physical size but huge in terms of the scope; it will deliver the kind of understanding that will allow us to inform our retrofit programmes over the next ten years and I'm delighted that Simon, Jo, Alistair and Yvonne as well as Jennifer and Russell are working with us to deliver it.

Prospecthill Court Deep Retrofit and District Heating

In our other project, we’re delighted to be working with Kier Group to deliver the Prospecthill Project in Greenock. Designed by BDP (Building Design Partnership Ltd) and supported by Currie & Brown and QODA Consulting.

The project has leveraged support through the Scottish Government SHNZHF fund and will see the retrofit of 90 homes within a 1960s multi-story tower block to under 50 KWh of space heating per square meter annually – or around 2500 KWh per year per household.

The work will include a rain screen cladding system, insulation improvements, high-quality glazing, mechanical ventilation, the mitigation of thermal bridging, and reducing air changes towards an operational energy performance in line with either LETI or (AECB) Association for Environment Conscious Building deep retrofit standards.

We wanted to recognize the great work from a range of professionals involved in this project, not least our Senior Technical Manager, David Eadie – he’s not on LinkedIn but has driven this project forward alongside Oliver Wilson from concept to reality.

This project will be a fantastic opportunity to learn lessons and share these across the wider construction and social housing sector. Lessons in how we improve and refine our practices and processes to deliver net-zero social housing in a way that is both environmentally and, crucially for River Clyde Homes, socially sustainable.

We're partnering with iOpt Limited to provide pre and post occupancy evaluation for this project, which is critical in how we learn and understand how to improve retrofit.As Dane Ralston says if you can't measure it you can't improve it and we want to do both.

With thanks to Chris Clarke and his colleagues at SCAPE as well as Caitriona Jordan and Built Environment - Smarter Transformation for their continued support and Mike Stevenson at NorDan UK Ltd and Sarah Price.