Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Retrofitting our homes has never been more important than it is in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, with 6 million homes at risk of fuel poverty, and the desire to achieve climate change and net zero targets.
Homes hold a unique place in the solutions to many of the problems societies are currently facing and so retrofitting our homes is seen as an essential part of the solution which can have profound impacts nationally and for individual householders. Professor David Glew explains how measuring the benefits of retrofitting on an individual home to neighbourhood scale is essential to understanding what works but also what risks there may be when we retrofit homes.
Social and technical challenges exist around household choices around retrofitting as well as switching to low-carbon heating in the form of hydrogen and heat pumps. Professor Glew discusses how can these things come together to help the UK on its journey to net zero carbon and eradicating fuel poverty?
This lecture is part of Leeds Beckett university's inaugural professional lecture series.
Professor Glew is the Director of the Leeds Sustainability Institute (LSI) at Leeds Beckett University and Head of Energy Efficiency and Policy.
The LSI undertake research under three themes of Sustainable Behaviour, Sustainable Buildings and Sustainable Urban Environments. The LSI’s work in developing the coheating test over the past few decades was revolutionary for the ability to provide the actual measured performance of buildings, which was fundamental to the performance gap becoming an accepted phenomenon in the construction industry.
David and his team continue to undertake Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) field trials, in-use monitoring and post-occupancy evaluations as well as investigating behaviour change and how homeowners and industry can make more sustainable decisions.
Recent building performance evaluation (BPE) research projects David has managed for the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) include the DEEP retrofit project compares retrofit performance and risks when installed separately in piecemeal, compared to a whole house approach and describes how modelling input assumptions used in policy (EPCs) can be improved.
