A project is demonstrating retrofit solutions for some of the most energy inefficient homes across Scotland and the UK. The newly-built Refurbished House, which has been constructed at the BRE Innovation Park @Ravenscraig, in Scotland, is a recreation of a ‘four in a block’ building, with two apartments on the ground floor and two on the first.

Developed specifically for retrofit, the project has been delivered by BRE Scotland, Edinburgh Napier University and Historic Scotland. It is designed by Kraft Architecture and Hannah Read Consulting Engineers and constructed by contractor Cruden. The house enables robust assessments to be made of cost effective upgrading solutions for walls, windows, roofs and services for this building type. There are estimated to be 265,000 of the ‘four in a block’ home types in Scotland but their build style is similar to cavity block walls found in 3m homes in England.

The block of homes allows different technologies and approaches to be compared. The upper homes are being equipped with solar technology, while lower homes feature underfloor heating. One is being retrofitted with minimum disruption to mimic tenant occupation, while another is being retrofitted as an empty unit.

BRE is also developing a BRE RetrofitLab app to aid home retrofit, and help users to select retrofit materials and solutions.

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