Living in a listed building is a dream for many of us, fed a life-long diet of George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces and BBC period dramas. 

But with energy prices so high, keeping these buildings warm has become a major headache for all residents of listed buildings. Usually, the restrictions imposed by the listing status will prevent most modern insulation techniques from being installed. Double or triple glazing is out. Exterior wall insulation is clearly impossible. With rooms sizes frequently small and oddly shaped, internal insulated plasterboard is also unlikely to be a viable solution on walls usually constructed of solid stone. Furthermore, finding a contractor willing and able to sensitively upgrade a listed building is extremely difficult – and expensive. 

So how to you enable the people who maintain our built heritage to live in comfort, whilst keeping their energy costs as low as possible? 

Step forward Andrew Gardner, Director of the ‘Above Ground’ architectural practiced in Saltaire, near Bradford. 

Saltaire is a World Heritage Site purpose-built in the 19th century by millowner Sir Titus Salt, comprised of rows of honey-coloured stone terraced homes, laid out in a grid next to Salt’s former mill.  

Andrew is leading a visionary project titled ‘Saltaire Retrofit Reimagined’ which will “create ‘clear, accessible, and realistic’ online retrofit guidance endorsed by the relevant authorities and with community and contractor buy-in.” The result will be a guide and a set of specifications that homeowners can follow, knowing that the guidance has been specifically designed for their type of home and has already been given the green light by the relevant authorities. 

Source: Martin Priestley 

It is unlikely that homeowners will tackle the entire retrofit package in one go. They’ll most likely need to live in the home whilst the work is ongoing. And so, any guidance will need to be practical, and ideally much of it will need the possibility to be undertaken on a DIY basis. Living in a warm and comfortable home shouldn’t be the preserve of homeowners with the means to employ contractors. 

All of us at Brimstone Energy wish Andrew and Above Ground all the best in their pioneering work. Here in Cambridgeshire, whilst we don’t have so many stone houses akin to those in Saltaire, we do have a host of 18^th and 19^th Century cottages with their own challenges. We hope that Above Ground’s work will inspire further such work across the country, to help homeowners of all types be able to embrace the Green Energy Revolution. 

Saltaire Retrofit Reimagined (above-ground.co.uk) 

Architect in the community: How do you mass-retrofit listed homes? (architectsjournal.co.uk) 

Andrew (footwork.org.uk)