Overview of the Net Zero Homes session at Housing 2022 with Together Housing & Concept Heating

Delegates were again thrilled to meet Betty and the Q-Bot team at Housing 2022, Manchester’s premier social housing event.

On Tuesday 28^th June, Q-Bot presented a retrofit session with Together Net Zero and Concept Heating on net zero homes – How innovative technology can help achieve better energy efficiency standards and create a more sustainable housing sector.

With the unprecedented rise in energy prices, more residents are struggling to pay their energy bills. The UK is known to have the least energy efficient housing stock in Europe. In order to achieve the UK’s climate target, 25m homes must be retrofitted over the next 30 years. Today, the focus is on assisting housing providers in meeting their carbon target by quickly improving the fabric of buildings in the most cost-effective ways possible.

Together Housing, Concept Heating and Q-Bot discussed how innovative technologies can be used to implement high performance retrofit measures to significantly increase SAP scores and reduce the demand for heat.

The panel of speakers included Patrick Berry, Director of Together Net Zero; Luke Byrom, Commercial Manager at Concept Heating; and Leigh Fairbrother, Head of Commercial from Q-Bot.

 

Overview of the panel discussion

• Leigh Fairbrother, Head of Commercial, Q-Bot

Leigh Fairbrother has over a decade of experience developing and delivering renewable and domestic energy efficiency projects with measurable environment, social and economic benefits for Social Housing Providers.

Leigh started the panel discussion by highlighting that data currently hold on UK properties is limited. Social housing providers need to have reliable information to make informed decisions – which are the best properties to target first, which are likely to be eligible for funding, which combination of measure should install to meet the energy standard and, how can this be achieved in the most cost-effective way.

This will inform the scale of investment required to achieve EPC ‘C’ and inform future decisions when targeting Net Zero emissions. As a first, customers should ensure that loft, cavity, and under floor have been insulated. Suspended floors are responsible for ~20% of a home’s heat loss and 1/3 of draughts. Q-Bot’s solution is key to tackling the challenge of insulating floors with minimal disruption and maximal benefits. Q-Bot’s robots spray-applies insulation to the underside of floorboards, while improving the performance and SAP scores of the property.

With the help of an in-house business intelligence team and AI software technology, Q-Bot can analyse property data using information available from several sources to provide social landlords with valuable energy performance information and whilst also identifying the most suitable properties for its robotic underfloor insulation.

 

• Patrick Berry, Director, Together Net Zero

Patrick Berry is the Director of Together Net Zero, responsible for Together Housing Groups ambitious Carbon Reduction Strategy. Patrick is also in charge of the investment in retrofit and operations required to deliver its key objectives.

Together Net Zero is committed to achieve EPC 'C' by 2030 with a focus on being heat pump ready and removing all fossil fuels by 2035. Data is key to ensure basic insulation measures are in place for a large proportion of poorer performing stock and therefore become heat pump ready. Data will support appropriate funding applications and understand potential uplift before starting the programme of work.

This is the first investment of Together Housing in underfloor insulation as it was previously considered too disruptive and expensive. Retrofit contractors were procured through the Procure Plus, procurement framework, to access Green Home Grant – Local Authority Delivery phase 2 funding. This has involved retrofitting about 85 properties across the North West and M62 Corridor. Q-Bot’s underfloor insulation was one of the measures being installed to insulate suspended floors.

Patrick explained that Concept Heating is the local supplier installing Q-Bot’s solution into Together Housing’s properties. Concept Heating became a Q-Bot Accredited Partner in August 2021 to deliver the service to their customers in the Greater Manchester & Lancashire regions. More than 80 properties have already been upgraded using Q-Bot’s unique robots.

Patrick said: “the installations have worked well, they are quick and efficient. Q-Bot’s solution is now a permanent part of Together Housing strategy, now considered a staple part of our insulation response as it is the one of the most cost-effective measures.”

 

• Luke Byrom, Commercial Manager, Concept Heating

Luke Byrom is the Commercial Manager at Concept Heating Services. With over a decade working in the built environment, Luke leads Concept Heating’s Installation Teams responsible for retrofitting thousands of energy efficiency measures in domestic properties.

Concept Heating is a family business offering retrofit and heating solutions to social housing providers. Luke explained that Concept Heating has a long-term relationship with Together Housing having installed heating programmes for over 10 years in their properties. Together Housing has appointed Concept Heating to deliver GHG-LAD installs using a whole house retrofit approach. This included the installation of loft, cavity wall and Q-Bot’s underfloor insulation, ventilation, air source heat pumps, plus solar PV and battery storage.

Luke said: “Floor must be retrofitted and yet we are behind where we should be. Q-Bot made complete sense to us, as it’s safer, less disruptive compared to traditional method, and the robot can do better than a person. Q-Bot’s underfloor insulation has a strong impact on properties to achieve energy and carbon standard.”

As an example, Concept Heating provided a case study of a recent install. The property has received several measures including Q-Bot’s underfloor insulation, solar PV, battery storage, loft, and cavity wall insulation. The property was originally rated as EPC E (49 SAP points) and was upgraded to EPC B (82 SAP points) – A 33 SAP point improvement. Without Q-Bot’s underfloor solution, Luke indicated that the property would only have reached an EPC C rating.

Concept Heating has already increased their fleet of robots to face the rapid growth of demand.

 

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss further, please get in touch here.