Laganakou, G (2020) What feasible macro-scale interventions could stimulate a sustainable growth in the UK housing retrofit industry? An examination of the potential impact from supply-chain innovations on low energy retrofit of pre-1919 housing. PhD thesis, University of Northampton, UK.
Abstract
Understanding the context for encouraging new retrofit practices to be applied to domestic housing in the UK is of crucial importance to any consideration of what could impact on energy reduction and domestic housing costs within the wider UK housing market. The thesis reviews attempts made to stimulate the retrofit market and the struggle of the industry to keep up with the stop/start UK legislation and changes of funding mechanisms on energy reduction policies. It then focuses on the influence of voluntary standards such as Passive House and its Whole-House retrofit standard, EnerPHit along with current innovations incorporating offsite mechanisms in their retrofit delivery. Considering lessons learned from previous attempts, the thesis examines what outcomes these relatively recent approaches could have within the UK housing retrofit “evolution” and specifically when applied on the most challenging of the UK’s housing stock of the pre-1919 typologies. Wide research has been done on either housing retrofit or offsite construction in new-build but due to the relatively recent implementation of offsite in retrofit a research gap was identified considering their future applicability in the UK’s older stock and by extension on the retrofit market and regulation. With a socio-technical methodology approach incorporating energy and cost modelling along with the uptake of a survey focusing on the construction industry’s representatives, the thesis examined the feasible complexities and opportunities of these approaches on pre-1919 typologies through the prism of regulation, technical complications, financial opportunities and social barriers and incentives. The findings from this research showed that there is a variety of advantages and disadvantages in adopting deep retrofit with offsite mechanisms that stretch beyond straightforward energy and cost reductions and are dependable on typology, location and offsite measure applied. Equally important the research contributed on identifying how these mechanisms could respond to the emerging regulations on quality control for retrofit delivery and provides an insight on of the policy and practical implications in the adoption of such measures.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | UK; cost modelling; funding; legislation; market; offsite construction; policy; quality control; regulation; retrofit; standards |
| Index terms: | funding, passive house, modelling, quality control, implementation, construction industry, retrofit industry, socio-technical, low energy, evolution, methodology, regulation, lessons learned, complexity, cost reduction, housing, legislation, housing stock, survey, energy reduction |
| Subjects: | analytical methods, economic analysis, legal systems, environmental science, contractual arrangements, construction type, research methods, health safety and environment, project delivery, energy systems, data collection methods, political science, systems engineering, industry analysis, economics, professional development |
| Topics: | Health and Safety, Engineering Principles, Sustainability, Procurement, Legal Issues, Quality Management, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Information Management, Research Practice, Governance, Construction Technology |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here