Introduction

This report on retrofitting private housing documents research carried out throughout 2014-2015 by Catrin Maby (Severn Wye Energy Agency) and Alice Owen (University of Leeds), with the support of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts Climate Change Collaboration.

The aims of the research were to produce evidence, and develop policy and intervention recommendations, to identify how mainstream building and allied trades could help accelerate the low-carbon retrofit of the UK's private housing stock, using deep, qualitative insights from the important but generally unreported group of building trade micro enterprises.

The Research

The research aimed to collect in-depth qualitative data from retrofit installers and building tradespeople on the issue of making energy improvements to existing homes.

They asked people about their working practices and their perspectives on retrofit in the construction industry. To understand how and why installers undertake the work they do, they asked about geographical range, influences, and sources of information and knowledge. They were also interested in how tradespeople linked with each other, and with specialist installers.

The initial research questions identified were:

• What factors affect the implementation of low-carbon retrofit through micro enterprises?
• What are the building tradepeople's own views of what drives their business activity and what is needed to change that activity?
• How do micro enterprises see their business activity changing? Where does this view come from?
• What are the barriers to overcome in shifting mainstream business practice so that it incorporates more energy improvements/low-carbon measures?

There were 38 research participants, 33 of which were individual interviews and the remainder were in two small discussion groups. The participants consisted of 20 general builders, 7 plumbers/heating engineers, 2 electricians, 2 carpenters/joiners, a roofer, a bricklayer, a painter/decorator, a solid wall insulation installer, and 3 builder's merchants. The sample was drawn from several sources, the majority being local and neighbourhood contacts, which was then balanced with a sample from professional networks, such as the Severn Wye Energy Agency 'Link to Energy' network of local installers. 

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