Deep low-carbon refurbishment challenge: what hasn’t worked as designed?

摘要

While Building Regulations standards become more stringentin order to meet ambitious UK Government reduction targetsby 2050, low-carbon solutions in building stock refurbishmentdo not always perform as intended. Considering this, and giventhat there is still little evidence on deep refurbishments that implementlow-carbon ‘whole-house’ approaches in the UK, thispaper presents evidence on their implementation, installationand use, using a sample of 26 deep retrofitted social houses.The paper explores what has (or has not) been implementedas intended/designed, discussing the failures and successesthat emerge under the lenses of effectiveness in delivery, performance,occupant satisfaction and control interaction withthe low-carbon building system. Using an interdisciplinaryapproach, technical and non-technical factors are examinedthrough a detailed analysis of the quantitative and qualitativeempirical data. The overall performance in-use is discussed inrelation to the initial refurbishment delivery goals. The findingsreveal issues connected to knowledge, skills, communicationand quality of installation of the low-carbon interventions andhow these affect occupants’ interaction and control behaviour.By recognising the importance to provide higher standards ininstallation of the new measures and improving quality controlsin the implementation, the research outlines key messagesand recommendations to different actors (i.e. policymakers, researchers,implementers, the supply chain and users) involvedin social housing refurbishment programmes.