Solution
Air-source heat pumps
Moving heat from outside air into a building using electricity, instead of burning fuel.
Many models can also run in reverse, cooling the building in warmer months.
Retrofitting an occupied building
How insulation, heating upgrades and on-site solar might be sequenced while people keep using the building.
Context
Many buildings stay in use while they are upgraded, which shapes what can be done and when.
What the work involves.
Step 0101
Survey
Understand the building's fabric, its heating system and how people actually use it.
Step 0202
Sequence
Improve insulation and airtightness first, then fit heating sized to the lower demand, then add on-site solar.
Step 0303
Settle in
Plan works around occupants and check comfort, moisture and running costs after each stage.
Considerations
What it has to weigh up.
- 01
Moisture and ventilation, which change once a building is better sealed.
- 02
Disruption to the people using the building.
- 03
Checking performance after completion, not only at design.
At a glance
- Systems
- Buildings, Energy
- Solutions
- Air-source heat pumps, Rooftop solar
- Steps
- Survey, Sequence, Settle in
- Year
- 2024
How projects are sourced and reviewed is set out in our methodology.
Solutions and systems
What it connects.
Solution
Rooftop solar
Panels on homes, schools and warehouses that generate electricity where it is used.
Output can power the building directly, charge a battery or be exported to the grid.
System
Buildings
The homes, offices and public buildings we heat, cool and build, and the materials they are made from.
Construction, heating, cooling and efficiency
System
Energy
How power is generated, moved and stored, and how grids adapt as more of the economy runs on electricity.
Electricity, renewables, grids and storage
Your questions, answered.
Quick answers about the platform and its content.
The context, the work step by step, what it has to weigh up, and the solutions and systems it connects.
To show how approaches come together in practice across different systems, from restoring land to electrifying transport.
Every project links to the solutions it puts to use and the systems it touches, each with its own page.
Yes. Tell us about it through the contact page, and we can look at documenting it with its evidence.
