The Scottish Government plans to introduce a Heat in Buildings Bill including minimum energy efficiency and clean heating regulations for dwellings. Earlier this year, Loco Home Retrofit CIC and Under One Roof partnered to consider what the proposals would mean for a typical tenement.
Owners of all sorts of homes face significant challenges to retrofitting insulation and clean heating due to cost, complexity and risk. These issues are compounded in traditional buildings. Moreover, buildings in multiple ownership such as tenements face challenges with co-operation and governance.
The project developed a holistic view of retrofit needs and options for a whole privately-owned tenement building in Dennistoun, Glasgow.
This report provides insights for policy makers and is also of use to tenement owners and their factors.
Key Findings
- Extensive surveys of the building identified typical issues such as stonework repairs and an upcoming need to replace the roof tiles.
- Running cost savings with heat pumps were estimated at between £318 and £526 per year for flats maintained at 20°C, without new insulation.
- Tenement owners face huge challenges with costs and coordination. In the view of Loco Home, the most achievable decarbonisation plan may be one that involves relatively few changes to the common parts of the building. Such a plan should enable additional measures, such as heat pumps, to be adopted on a flat-by-flat basis depending on the preferences of the individual owners.
- The findings reinforce the recommendations of the Scottish Parliamentary Working Group on Tenement Maintenance for mandatory owners associations, building reserve funds and periodic surveys. This governance framework would provide the basis for strong cooperation on retrofit as well as maintenance.
Watch
This film explores the issues raised in the report.