SR214 Housing life cycle and sustainability: Part 1 (2018)

This is the first of two reports prepared during research into the life cycle of the housing stock and the opportunities for introducing sustainable features such as insulation and water-saving devices into existing houses during major maintenance.

The report is in three main parts:

• Analysis of the types of renovation and maintenance carried out now on the housing stock.
• A model of the numbers requiring major maintenance allowing for losses through demolition.
• The cost benefits of various types of retrofit and the trade-off between demolition/replacement and renovation.

There is some consented work already being carried out on the stock, which is major renovation and component replacement. However, the maintenance model developed in this report suggests that these numbers will need to rise significantly in order to retain the housing services presently provided by the housing stock.

Major renovation is an opportune time to retrofit efficiency measures into existing houses and thereby improve the sustainability of the stock. The cost benefits of many of these retrofits are identified in the report.