Energiesprong, Nottingham social housing pilot
A whole-house, net-zero retrofit pilot on existing council homes using prefabricated external panels and roof-mounted plant.
Source
Summarised from Energiesprong UK, a Tier 3 source on Your Home Climate. We did not run this project; the figures below are reported by them. Click through to verify any of them at the original publication.
https://www.energiesprong.uk/casestudiesThe problem, before any work started
A street of 1930s ex-council semis in Nottingham, leaky, expensive to heat, and unloved. Tenants had spent years patching draughts and feeding meters. Conventional retrofit would have meant months of disruption per home, spread over years across the street.
What actually happened
- 01Each home was surveyed in detail and a new insulated facade and roof were manufactured off-site to fit it.
- 02Old heating was removed; an air-source heat pump, solar PV and ventilation were installed in the same visit.
- 03The new envelope and plant were fitted in one operation lasting one to two weeks per home, with tenants staying in place.
- 04Performance was guaranteed against a measured pre-works baseline rather than against a modelled rating.
What changed for the home
- Time on site per home dropped from months to weeks.
- Each home moved from a gas-and-meter routine to a near-net-zero envelope with a guaranteed energy performance.
- Tenants experienced a single short disruption rather than a rolling programme.
What the source reports
- Time on site per home1-2 weeksreported
- Performance basisGuaranteed against measured baselinereported
Measured means monitored data from the site. Reported is the publisher's stated figure. Modelled is a target or design figure rather than an outcome.
What this case can, and can't, tell you
What it tells us
- Whole-house retrofit can be delivered in a fortnight when the supply chain is set up to do it.
- Tenants prefer one short disruption to a multi-year rolling programme.
- A performance guarantee is contractually possible when there is a credible measured baseline to compare against.
What it doesn't
- How the economics translate to a one-off owner-occupier paying for their own home.
- Whether the factory-panel approach copes with conservation-area facades or non-standard geometries.
- Long-term durability of the wraparound system; published monitoring is still relatively short-run.
Our take
We read this case as proof of concept for outcome-led retrofit, not as a template a private homeowner can copy this year. The transferable lesson is the discipline of measuring before and after, and of writing the expected outcome into the contract.