Social housing: net zero progress report - quarter 2 2024

Project Title: Sandstone Tenement Archetype Solution

Project Organisation: Wheatley Homes

Technology Type(s): IWI, LI, UFI and HHRSH

Location(s): Multiple locations across Edinburgh City Council and Glasgow City Council

Grant Value: £960,000

Completion Date: Projected March 2025

Project Headline: Whole house fabric first retrofit approach to 48 sandstone tenement flats in Glasgow and Edinburgh

Project Description:

The project is targeted at improving 48 sandstone tenements flats; focusing on full fabric insulation using solutions specifically tailored for this archetype. Works will be carried out at ‘void’ stage. This will allow multiple applicable measures to be installed.

Glasgow and Edinburgh have around 146,000 pre-1919 sandstone tenements. This archetype is one of the most challenging from a scalable retrofit and decarbonisation perspective because of their age, building materials, condition, listed status and multiple ownerships in a block.

The proposals cover sandstone tenements in Edinburgh and Glasgow, using a successful ‘menu of measures’ approach Wheatley Group have deployed from a previous project. This project resulted in achieving EPC ‘B’, from a typical starting point of ‘D’. Space heating energy demand as low as 44kWh/m2 has been achieved in one case, with typical levels of 70kWhm2, from an average starting position around 137kWh/m2. This project is expected to achieve similar results.