Social housing retrofit strategies in England and France: A parametric and behavioural analysis

Abstract

IFORE (Innovation for Renewal) is an EU Interreg funded partnership including two large housing associations, one in England, one in France, and a university from each country. The project is an exemplar large-scale retrofit, 100 houses have been retrofitted at Rushenden, on the Isle of Sheppey (Kent, England), and a similar number at Outreau, a suburb of Boulogne (Pas-de-Calais, France). This paper offers an overview of the methods used by the project team to find common solutions and to identify similarities between retrofit measures and occupant's behaviour in both countries. The cross-border nature of IFORE makes the project also original in relation to other similar national retrofit projects that have been developed prior to it. Dynamic thermal simulation was used to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the buildings refurbished. It is a valuable decision-making tool when assessing alternative retrofit measures. Initial surveys were carried out to make a classification of the housing stock which formed the context for the computer simulations. Some results from the simulations, carried out with ESP-r in England and Pleiade+Comfie in France, are presented in this paper. The comparison of the results from the two simulation tools shows great similarity between the two methods, which gave confidence for their use in evaluating alternative specifications for the works that have now been adopted for retrofit. At the same time sociological studies have characterised the populations in order to bring the most advantageous results from the retrofit works in reducing carbon emissions but also reducing fuel poverty whilst improving comfort standards.